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Comment by spqr0a1 | Hacker News Reader

Welcome to the complexities of Hymenoptera genetics! Workers are 75% related to each other (sisters) and only 50% related to their mother (the queen). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplodiploidy#Relatedness_rati...

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It's even more complicated than this with some species.

Those numbers are true if a female mates once. Honeybee (Apis spp.) queens that lead successful colonies, for example, typically mate with a dozen or more male partners. This has beneficial genetic effects but is probably done just to satisfy sperm storage requirements since they only perform one mating flight. The result of this is that the thousands of sisters in the hive have many different fathers, reducing the worker-to-worker relatedness.

I remember reading essay on bees and altruism. Standard line is bees are altruistic because workers are 75% related. Author made the claim that's bunkum because a) Honey bees are rather extreme. b) Multiple male fathers.

Bee reproductive setups are really diverse with honey bees at one end, solitary bees at the other, and just about anything else between.

The eusocial altruistic behavior of bees and other Hymenoptera requires relatedness (kin selection), but it also requires other ecological benefits like a nest that could be kept safe across multiple generations. This work is detailed exhaustively by Richard Alexander where he discusses origins of altruistic group behavior in both eusocial species and humans.

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