Establishment of cape honey bees as social parasites in African honeybee colonies

Since Cape honey bees cause huge losses of African bee colonies by taking over reproduction, they are expected to establish easily after invading a colony. However, by artificial introduction of marked bees, we found that African bees are by no means defenceless. Cape bees started to reproduce in only one out of four colonies; in two other colonies all Cape bees were removed within three days. In the last African colony some of the Cape bees were removed, and the remaining Cape bees had not developed into egg-layers after 12 days. Apparently African bees can readily detect and remove potential Cape parasites after invasion into their colonies. Conditions inside the colony may be critical in defining vigilance of the bees. This suggests that alternative beekeeping management systems can reduce damage due to Cape parasites.