Thursday, November 10, 2016

South African Cape Bees are Reproducing Without Mates

The Cape Bee, a honey bee that is native to South Africa, is just like any ordinary honey bee.  Except for the fact that the female worker bees are renegades.  The Cape Bee is a small subspecies of honey bee found only in South Africa, which have the ability to self fertilize.  This would be considered a normal thing, as many insects, reptiles, and other organisms can reproduce asexually, but so far, honey bees have not been seen on this list.  This subspecies of bees is observed taking over other colonies, in a stealthy and gene induced way.

The Cape Bee females have this quality to them, that allows them to go against the rule of their own queens, and take over other hives.  This renegade action would normally be a problem, as the workers in one hive would recognize this intruder and exterminate them, but for some reason the Cape Bee is able to make it's way into the position of queen.  How it does this, is in it's genes.

The Cape Bee, while it has a very similar genome to normal honey bees, it has a few specific differences.  One of which allows for the Cape Bee to reproduce asexually.  This is done by the queen laying a pre-fertilized egg, which is created by the fusing of 2 of her eggs.  This eliminates the purpose of having a mate, which allows the new queen to parasite her way into a new hive without notice.  This is called social parasitism, and is only used by this bee because its genes let it disguise itself as a member of the same colony, while also giving it the ability to reproduce asexually.

Diagram of haplodiploid sex determination in the honey bee. Unfertilized eggs develop into drones, and fertilized eggs develop into females.

The fact that a very small change in the genome of this bee is the only thing that allows it to completely reproduce asexually is fascinating to me.  Also that this bee's female colony members can just become the queens of other colonies just through a parasitic process is incredible.  Bees are normally very territorial and defensive against intruders, but this is the case where the impostor goes unnoticed, allowing them to take complete control of their new hive, which is pretty unique.  Knowing this though, I feel like this subspecies would be much more abundant in nature, but there must be a specific stressor that is causing these bees to spread to other hives. 


  1. The mutation that has lead the Cape Bees to have 2 qualities is amazing. I think that this will help them to survive better. I think this subspecies could dominate the honey bees species in the future.

  2. It's really cool that these bees are able to reproduce asexually. With this adaptation, I feel that it will benefit the species very well. It's also interesting that they can take over a hive so easily without seeming to have any issues whatsoever.