How the Queen Bee Avoids Inbreeding in Her Honeybee Colony

The queen bee in any colony has an important job: breeding. But how does this insect avoid inbreeding in her colony? High genetic diversity is important for the whole colony's survival and now, scientists have taken a closer look at the mechanisms that the queen bee uses.

Honeybees live in colonies that consist mostly of closely related members of the worker caste. Yet high genetic diversity is important; a genetically variable workforce may be best equipped to perform the diverse tasks required in the colony, and may be less susceptible to disease.

In order to solve the issue of inbreed, the queen bee uses two methods. One method is polyandry; she mates with a score of drones and uses their sperm to fertilize her eggs randomly so that workers have different fathers. The second technique is through high rates of recombination.

In order to better understand bee genetics, the researchers sequenced the entire genome of 30 African honeybees. This revealed that the frequency of recombination in the honeybee is higher than measured in any other animal; in fact, it's more than 20 times higher than in humans.

Recombination affects how efficiently natural selection can promote favorable genetic variants. In fact, the researchers have found that genes involved in the new adaptations to the environment in honeybees also undergo more recombination.

However, there is a price to pay for recombination. Errors can sometimes occur, resulting in mutations. This can deteriorate the gene pool over time.

The findings reveal a bit more about how honeybees maintain their genetic diversity. This, in turn, tells researchers a bit more about these insects in general, which is important as honeybee colonies continue to decline.

The findings are published in the journal PLOS Genetics.

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