I gathered three queens from my pool. Two were larger and slightly lighter, one was a bit smaller and darker.
I stepped on an RIFA nest, and dumped the queens on top. All three were immediately surrounded by workers. The smaller, darker queen became calm and was rapidly escorted into the nest, nudged along by workers, who directed her to the entrance. The other two became more and more agitated, and were driven off by the workers.
This confirms my suspicion that both polygyne and monogyne RIFA exist here. It also appears as if the polygyne queens have very slight morphological differences.
From the numbers of the two kinds of queens, the monogyne ones are still more prevalent here (or they produce more queens).
Interestingly enough, the presence of workers initially calmed all the queens, but more exposure made the job polygyne ones agitated.
I wonder if the two strains are reproductively isolated? They flew on the same day, under the same conditions.
EDIT: As this experiment wasn't rigorous, the queen that was adopted could simply have been originally from that colony, and thus was accepted back in. However, the behavior seemed more like adoption as opposed to nestmate recognition -- she was surrounded by a good sized group of workers, who rushed to her to escort her in.
Edited by cpman, June 26 2017 - 1:57 PM.
