Queens, not workers, produce the males in the stingless bee Schwarziana quadripunctata quadripunctata

Most stingless bee colonies have one singly mated queen, resulting in a potential conflict between workers and queen over male production, because workers are more closely related to the sons of other workers than they are to the queen's sons. Furthermore, workers in the majority of stingless bee species have ovarian development, can produce haploid eggs, and show apparently agonistic behaviour towards their queen, suggesting a real conflict. We investigated whether genetic conflict over male production resulted in reproductive and behavioural conflict in Schwarziana q. quadripunctata. DNA microsatellite loci showed that, even though workers are more related to other workers' sons than to queen's sons, it is the queen who produces the males. Behavioural interactions between workers and their queen were not uniformly more aggressive during male production than at times with only worker production, although some differences might have been obscured by the fact that food supply was greater during male production. The potential conflict over male production in S. q. quadripunctata seems not to lead to an observable conflict between the workers and their queen. Workers might refrain from reproduction because of the costs involved for the colony or because of queen control.