in some species, the young queen on her mating flight mates with several males instead of one. This means that the average relatedness among her daughters is less than , and may even approach in extreme cases. It is tempting, though probably not very logical, to regard this as a cunning blow struck by queens against workers! Incidentally, this might seem to suggest that workers should chaperone a queen on her mating flight, to prevent her from mating more than once. But this would in no way help the workers’ own genes—only the genes of the coming generation of workers.
