When is it time to kill the queen?
October 30, 2015 12:39 PM   Subscribe

Social insects are the most altruistic animals we know of, always ready to give their lives for Queen and Colony. Or... almost always. Possibly deranged researcher Kevin Loope collected colonies of yellow jacket wasps from the wild and video-taped instances of matricide, when workers turn on the queen and kill her. His study helped confirm the hypothesis that this happens most often when all the wasps have the same father.
posted by clawsoon (25 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is what happens when you let wasps read Shakespeare.
posted by Splunge at 12:46 PM on October 30, 2015 [24 favorites]


Well, he was a wasp, after all.
posted by Etrigan at 12:48 PM on October 30, 2015 [10 favorites]


That's really interesting. Thanks for posting!
posted by persona au gratin at 1:03 PM on October 30, 2015


Before diving into these articles, I would just like to in passing note my support for all regicides and mutineers everywhere, even the ones that happen to be hideous stinging insects.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:06 PM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]


Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Also the thorax and abdomen.
posted by yhbc at 1:13 PM on October 30, 2015 [22 favorites]


Why does he only protect his head? He needs a full-body astronaut suit. Yellow jackets are mean little shits.

Full disclosure: I am highly allergic to yellow jackets (one sting on my little finger swelled up my arm past my elbow, and gave me asthma-like breathing problems), and want them all dead.
posted by yesster at 1:14 PM on October 30, 2015


I'm not allergic, and I still want them all dead!
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:42 PM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]


Can we have a thread about arthropods where we don't make a bunch of perfunctory comments about how we'd like to kill them all? Similar comments about other types of animals would get flagged into oblivion and nuked from orbit. I love bugs, I have had bugs as pets, I have been emotionally attached to individual bugs and crustaceans in my life, and it is a bummer to know that every single time I see a really cool entomology-related post on MetaFilter the kill-it-with-fire brigade will be there wishing death on entire phyla.

Seriously, it would be so cool if we could move on from this particular type of snark. Thank you.
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:09 PM on October 30, 2015 [40 favorites]


The moderators have made clear that Metafilter is a left-wing site, and this affects moderation and tone.

It is also, it appears, an anti-arthropod site.
posted by clawsoon at 2:22 PM on October 30, 2015 [6 favorites]


Mod note: Would probably be okay to focus more on the link content and less on the abstract subject of bees and whether or not they're the absolute worst.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:30 PM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]


It appears that even when wasps aren't bastards... .....they're bastards.
posted by lumpenprole at 2:34 PM on October 30, 2015


The wasp that has burrowed into my brain and is controlling me while planting her eggs in my soft neural tissues completely agrees with prize bull octorok. Please, let's have some tolerance, people!
posted by happyroach at 2:44 PM on October 30, 2015 [8 favorites]


No, bee's are cool, it's wasps that are the worst.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:44 PM on October 30, 2015 [4 favorites]


Possibly relevant, wasps (as well as other hymenoptera, like bees and ants) have haplodiploid sex-determination.

I expect you know the story that you get half your genes from your mother and half from your father. And your sex is caused by whether you receive an XY or XX pair of genes.

With haplodiploid sex-determination, males have half as many genes as females.

A male wasp gets 100% of his genes from his mother, and that's why wasps can lay male eggs without mating.

And when a male and female mate and produce female offspring, the mother contributes half of her genes, but the father has to contribute 100% of his genes. So two daughters with the same father will share on average 75% of the same genes, and share only 50% with their mother.

I'm mentioning this in case anyone was wondering how "In such colonies, workers are more related to workers’ sons than queens’ sons."
posted by RobotHero at 2:45 PM on October 30, 2015 [30 favorites]


Wasps have a real hard time with that "what relation are you to Teresa" brain teaser.
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:03 PM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


Hmmm - it appears to me that this behaviour serves to limit rather than expand genetic diversity - which would seem to be counter productive in long term hive survival. I've always been a little cloudy on how bees/ants/wasps and other social bugs ensure new genetic material is introduced to the hive.
posted by helmutdog at 3:14 PM on October 30, 2015


Wasps are not bastards ...

... They're the frat boys of Hymenopterid U!
posted by cstross at 3:14 PM on October 30, 2015


I've always been a little cloudy on how bees/ants/wasps and other social bugs ensure new genetic material is introduced to the hive.

The thing you have to remember is that the leadership doesn't really care what happens to the hive beyond the next earnings report. They're all about juicing the hive's stock value in the short term, rather than about ensuring the long-term stability of the hive itself.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:56 PM on October 30, 2015 [14 favorites]


"Queen" in insect terms is one of those prime examples of how language can be a problem, like "brutalism" in architecture, which refers to naked materials and not brutality.

An insect queen in eusocial insects isn't the ruler of the hive, which rules itself with the queen as just another variety of function in the hive. She lays eggs and lives longer than most, and is attended by workers attuned to her function in the hive, but ultimately, her value to the hive begins and ends at her function, and when the hive collectively senses that she is no longer operating at her peak, they replace her. She's only special or useful when she does the one job she's designed to do.

It's one of those amusing oddities about us that we have to impose our own cultural weirdness on nature, assuming that if there is just one queen in a colony, that she must somehow be in charge. Quaint, even.
posted by sonascope at 5:27 PM on October 30, 2015 [25 favorites]


I think that bees, wasps, ants and other hive minds, (apologies to MeFites) are the most amazing and fascinating creatures. Imagine if your body wasn't so glued together. Imagine if, when attacked (in whatever way you might perceive an attack) that parts of your body, the sharp ones, might detach and protect your brain and sexual organs.

Picture fingernails and toenails and teeth flying away to scratch and kick and bite your enemy. Meanwhile your body creates more teeth and nails in case of another attack.

And just as you today, a toenail or a tooth may be lost. But the body is still strong. You are still a healthy hive.
posted by Splunge at 8:02 PM on October 30, 2015 [7 favorites]


That's that whole 'superorganism' theory that E.O. Wilson pushes hard [and which is awesome].
posted by shakespeherian at 11:46 PM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


I think that bees, wasps, ants and other hive minds, (apologies to MeFites) are the most amazing and fascinating creatures. Imagine if your body wasn't so glued together.

Insect hives are organizations given a push by evolution. All life above the single cell level consists of a similar amalgam of entities, working together to varying degrees. In this way, life has a kind of fractal nature, large organisms made up of smaller ones.

Hives look like self-contained units to us because they're tied closely to species, and the units themselves are able to reproduce, producing more hives. But it doesn't stop at the hive level either, and in a way, human cities are organisms too.
posted by JHarris at 2:26 AM on October 31, 2015


[Would probably be okay to focus more on the link content and less on the abstract subject of bees and whether or not they're the absolute worst.]

...almost flagged as a derail. It's wasps we're talking about. WASPS

On topic, I seriously wonder how anyone can determine if a wasp is a sibling or a cousin. Interview studies? DNA tests? Analysing ALL the sex scenes on the videos?
posted by Namlit at 2:28 AM on October 31, 2015


I'm assuming they determine genetic makeup through DNA testing (PCR and sequencing). What I'm most curious about is how the wasps know who is a sibling or a half sibling. Pheromones?
posted by picklenickle at 9:00 AM on October 31, 2015


sonascope: An insect queen in eusocial insects isn't the ruler of the hive, which rules itself with the queen as just another variety of function in the hive. She lays eggs and lives longer than most...

But on the other hand, from the last link:
[The queen] typically stops worker reproduction by egg eating, attacking reproducing workers, and by laying many of her own eggs.
With wasps, at least, the queen is very actively ruling the hive, crushing all potential competition ruthlessly like an Ottoman despot.
posted by clawsoon at 1:38 PM on October 31, 2015


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