Investigation of the Variation on Colony Development Traits in Colonies Founded by Super Sister Queens in Bumblebee

Studies examining the factors affecting the variation in terms of colony life and development characteristics are up to date in bombus terrestris. queens only mates with a male in b. terrestris, which has a haplodiploid reproductive system. therefore, there is only one group of super sisters in the colonies founded by the queen and all females have %75 genetic relatedness. in this study, it was aimed to examine the variation in terms of development characteristics among colonies in four different super sister queen groups, which were formed by using the genetic similarity of queens produced in same colony. in colonies, time of the first worker emergence varied between 22 - 38 days, switch point varied between 3 - 34 days, competition point varied between 20 - 43 days, total number of workers varied between 14 - 239, total number of males varied between 5 - 446 and total number of young queens varied between 2 - 239. the results of this study revealed the variation in terms of developmental characteristics even between colonies founded by genetically highly related queens.