I’m sure you’re sitting there, pondering questions of cosmic importance, just musing what is, was, can be, and such. And while you are doing that, probably one of the questions which often consumes your thoughts is “Why do queen bees mate with multiple males?” especially since you know one male produces enough sperm for all the baby bees the queen can produce in a single gestational period (yup – big word there – we like to educate while distributing trivial and worthless knowledge).
Seeking extra mates costs a promiscuous queen honeybee energy and time, and it puts her at greater risk of predation and catching venereal diseases. But it doesn’t stop her.
I’m going to offer up my guess here. Mama queen is just a horny slut. Of the extreme nymphomaniac persuasion. That’s not a judgement, mind you – I love horny sluts, and wish I knew more of them. Let’s read on and see if I am correct.
“Evidently, one important reason is to generate diverse offspring, something that produces a colony that has higher disease resistance than a colony with offspring from just one father,” said Cornell University biologist Thomas Seeley.
Seeley and North Carolina State University entomologist David Tarpy found that a colony fathered by more than one male was better equipped to fight off the infectious American foulbrood disease.
Well, that was my second guess. Or, really, my third. My second was “Because she keeps nagging each one telling him what he is doing wrong so he is incapable of performing fully and fails to impregnate her, but is thankfully free of her constant reminders afterwards of how he is failing the children as a father” but no one would ever think that, I’m sure.
Now if I could just get my wife to understand that I want to sexx0rize other chicks for the good of the species and to promote better genetic diversity amongst the human population. I figure the diversity card is good both ways. I’m all about improving the human race.
[tags]Why queen bees get it on with so many males, Promiscuity is good for the hive[/tags]