Polyandry
Lexikon
Polyandry means that the queen mates with several males.
Polyandry means that the queen mates with several males. About a week after emerging, she flies to a drone congregation area and mates there in flight with a whole series of unrelated drones. Figures for the number of partners vary by source, with roughly five to twenty commonly cited. The semen is mixed and stored in the spermatheca, where it remains usable for years.
This has consequences for relatedness within the colony. Workers with the same mother and the same father are related to about 75 percent and form what is called a subfamily. Workers with different fathers from the same colony are related to about 50 percent; if the fathers come from different colonies, it is around 25 percent. The high relatedness within a subfamily arises because the drone passes on his entire haploid genetic material unchanged.
Biologically, multiple mating gives the colony a broad genetic base, which buffers disease pressure and changing conditions more effectively. For the breeder, this conversely means that the paternal side can only be controlled through controlled mating at a mating station or through instrumental insemination.