My PhD project investigates worker reproduction in honey bee colonies. As in most social Hymenoptera, workers of the honey bees (Apis spp.) can produce unfertilized male producing eggs via parthenogenesis. Yet, in colonies with a queen, the vast majority of workers do not activate their ovaries and are effectively sterile. Furthermore, any eggs that are laid by workers are eaten (policed) by other workers, presumably because of the higher average relatedness of workers to offspring produced by the queen relative to worker-produced offspring.

When a honey bee colony becomes hopelessly queenless the normally sterile workers activate their ovaries, cease policing worker-laid eggs, and raise a last batch of drones before the colony ultimately perishes. The cessation of worker policing renders the queenless colony vulnerable to egg parasitism by any unrelated workers (non-natal) from other colonies that are present in the colony. Such parasitism occurs at high rates in the Asian open-nesting honey bee Apis florea and to a lesser extent in A. cerana.

My goal is to determine where these reproductive parasites come from. Do they drift by chance or do they home in on queenless colonies? How do they avoid defence mechanisms of their host colonies? How do colonies try to prevent parasitism and was this important for the evolution of worker policing? I would also like to answer the question of whether it is worker abstinence or worker policing that hinders worker reproduction in A. cerana. Although the commercial honeybee, Apis mellifera, which we have in Australia, has been thoroughly studied, comparatively little work has been done on the eight other recognised Apis species. Each species has their own idiosyncrasies and when we can put more pieces of the puzzle together we will hopefully know a lot more about reproductive conflict amongst what we thought was a sterile worker caste.

Publications

Chapman NC, Makinson J, Beekman M & Oldroyd BP 2009. Honeybee (Apis mellifera) guards use adaptive acceptance thresholds to limit worker reproductive parasitism. Animal Behaviour 78: 1205-1211.

Chapman NC, Nanork P, Gloag RS, Wattanachaiyingcharoen W, Beekman M & Oldroyd BP. 2009. Queenless honey bee (Apis florea) colonies are infiltrated by workers from other queenless nests. Behavioral Ecology: 20: 817-820.

Chapman NC, Nanork P, Reddy MS, Baht NS, Beekman M & Oldroyd BP 2008. Nestmate recognition by guards of the Asian hive bee (Apis cerana). Insectes Sociaux: doi 10.1007/s00040-008-1016-3.

NC Chapman, J Lim and BP Oldroyd (in press) Population genetics of commercial and feral honey bees (Apis mellifera) in Western Australia. Journal of Economic Entomology

NC Chapman, BP Oldroyd and WHO Hughes (2007) Differential responses of honey bee (Apis mellifera) patrilines to changes in stimuli for the generalist tasks of nursing and foraging. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 61: 1185-1194

NC Chapman and BP Oldroyd (2007) Report: Genetic diversity in the breeding lines of Better Bees Incorporated, breeding lines of other Western Australian bee breeders and Western Australian feral bees

P Nanork, NC Chapman, S Wongsiri, J Lim, R Gloag and BP Oldroyd (2007) Social parasitism by workers in queenless and queenlright Apis cerana colonies. Molecular Ecology 16: 1107-1114

BP Oldroyd, MS Reddy, NC Chapman, GJ Thompson and M Beekman (2006) Evidence for reproductive isolation between two colour morphs of cavity nesting honey bees (Apis) in south India. Insectes Sociaux 53: 428-434

NC Chapman and BP Oldroyd (2006) Report: Genetic diversity in the breeding lines of Better Bees Inc.

P Nanork, J Paar, NC Chapman, S Wongsiri and BP Oldroyd (2005) Asian honeybees parasitize the future dead. Nature 437: 829

NC Chapman (2004) Thesis: Genotype and age influence task switching in the honey bee (Apis mellifera)

 

Presentations

NC Chapman, P Nanork, W Wattanachaiyingcharoen, M Beekman and BP Oldroyd (2007) Queenless Apis florea colonies are targeted by drifting workers, National Conference on Impact of Biotechnology in India, Bangalore, India

NC Chapman, M Beekman and BP Oldroyd (2007) Worker reproductive parasitism in Apis, Biology Post-graduate Excellence Awards, University of Sydney, Australia

NC Chapman and BP Oldroyd (2007) Racial origin of commercial and feral honey bees (Apis mellifera) in Western Australia, Genetics Society of Australasia, Sydney, Australia

NC Chapman, BP Oldroyd and WHO Hughes (2006) Differential responses of honey bee (Apis mellifera) patrilines to changes in stimuli for the generalist tasks of nursing and foraging, International Union for the Study of Social Insects, Washington, America

NC Chapman, P Nanork P, M Beekman M and BP Oldroyd BP (2006) Guarding behaviour of Apis cerana, Beekeeping Workshop, Mahasarakham University, Thailand

NC Chapman, P Nanork and BP Oldroyd (2006) Are Apis cerana laying workers parasitic? Asian Apicultural Association, Perth, Australia

NC Chapman, BP Oldroyd and WHO Hughes (2005) Differential response of honeybee (Apis mellifera) genotypes to changes in stimuli for generalist tasks, Invertebrates, Canberra, Australia.