Intracolonial kin discrimination in honeybees: do bees dance with their supersisters?

Although kinship discrimination and nepotism have been extensively investigated in honeybees, Apis mellifera L., the significance of kin discrimination among worker bees is still unclear. One of the behavioural contexts in which nepotistic behaviour of worker bees has been described is the dance communication system: bees were reported to have a strong tendency to dance with their supersisters in colonies consisting of only two subfamilies. Using molecular markers, we reinvestigated this apparent case of nepotism. We found no evidence for subfamily discrimination among dancers and their followers in a colony consisting of only two subfamilies or in a colony consisting of 17 subfamilies. (C) 2001 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.