First discovery of a rare polygyne colony in the stingless bee Melipona quadrifasciata (Apidae, Meliponini)

Stingless bees are highly eusocial bees, and are characterised by having perennial colonies that are typically headed by one single-mated queen (Peters et al., 1999). The main exception to this pattern is found in Melipona bicolor, which is the only stingless bee species discovered so far to exhibit facultative polygyny, whereby several queens may coexist and share reproduction inside the colony for considerable periods of time (Bego, 1989; Velthuis et al., 2006). Aside from that, there are, for a few stingless bee species, also some anecdotal reports of temporary, transient episodes of polygyny (e.g. in M. scutellaris, Carvalho-Zilse and Kerr, 2004; Plebeia droryana, Silva, 1972; and P. wittmanni, Witter and Wittmann, 1997), which are usually associated with queen replacement events. Here we report on a novel case of occasional polygyny in the stingless bee M. quadrifasciata, in which an exceptionally high number (8) of egg-laying queens were found to coexist inside the same colony. In addition, and in contrast to some of the earlier studies demonstrating occasional polygyny in stingless bees, which were purely based on observations, we provide the first genetic data about the reproductive partitioning and relatedness among these different queens. ispartof: Apidologie vol:42 issue:2 pages:211-213 status: published