Within-colony sharing
After 18 hours in experimental colonies with workers, significantly more
brood from the same mother remained compared with brood from a different
mother (Fig 6a; two-tailed t-test: t17 = 5.2284,P < 0.001). The number of brood from a different mother
diminished by 27% while the brood from the same mother diminished by
only 14%. No dead larvae were found in the colonies.
Likewise, the feeding of larvae by workers differed depending on the
relationship between workers and brood. A higher percentage of brood
from the same mother as the workers were fed compared with brood from a
different mother (Fig 6b; two-tailed t- test: t17= 5.3881, P < 0.001).