When it comes to sex, we tend to see the male of the species as the most promiscuous.
Yet, as the story of the record-breaking honeybee shows us, females can be just as likely to play the sex game.
We know that male animals seek to mate with multiple females to increase their chances of reproductive success. And we think that females are naturally pickier because they invest more energy in producing offspring and do not increase their chances of reproducing by having more than one partner. These are among the most deeply entrenched concepts of evolutionary biology. They’re also way off the mark.
The myth of the ardent, promiscuous male and the coy, choosy female is based on what some have called the Darwin- Bateman paradigm. InThe Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Charles Darwin, one of the founding fathers of the theory of evolution, described how males had “strong passions” and “eagerly pursue” females. “The female, on the other hand, with the rarest exceptions,” he wrote, “is coy, and may often be seen endeavouring… to escape the male”.
In 1948 English geneticist Angus John Bateman published a now famous experiment in which equal numbers of male and female fruit flies were placed in bottles. He chose flies with mutations such as curly wings, small eyes and thick bristles, to give him a way to determine the parentage of the resulting offspring. Bateman concluded there was greater variability in both reproductive and mating success among males than females, and that while mating with multiple partners increased the chances of a male passing on his genes, this was not the case for females.
These ideas have strongly influenced evolutionary biologists for decades. Of course some pointed to examples of species in which observations showed the Darwin-Bateman sex roles were reversed, but perhaps surprisingly it was not until two papers published in 2007and 2012 that researchers showed Bateman’s conclusions were based on flawed experimenta l and statistical methods.
Patricia Adair Gowaty, of the University of California, Los Angeles, repeated his original experiment. She pointed out his methods could only identify parentage if offspring had the mutations of both its father and mother, and his data would only be accurate if such offspring were just as viable as those with one or no mutations – which they weren’t. All of which meant Bateman’s results and the conclusions based on them were wrong.
Which brings us neatly to honey bees. Early in life queens make mating flights during which they mate with multiple drones that die once they have deposited their sperm. They store and use the sperm throughout her life. Worker bees in the hives of queens that have had more partners have been shown to produce more honey comb. This promiscuity is believed to help improve resistance to disease by boosting genetic diversity.
So it is unsurprising that when Hector Cabrera-Mireles, then at the University of Florida, reviewed previous studies to identify the most polyandrous insect - the species in which the female copulates with the most males - he focused on honey bees.
The European honey bee was found to mate up to 20 times and the Asiatic honey bee up to 30 times. However Cabrera-Mireles determined that theApis dorsata, the giant honey bee of South and Southeast Asia, was the most polyandrous of all, with one DNA fingerprintin g studying determining that females had up to 53 mates.
The female cobalt milkweed beetlehas been recorded mating up to 60 times, but was disqualified by Cabrera-Mireles because this figure included multiple matings with the same male.

Fly sex? Really? Sometimes I believe these people are really perverted. Who decides to study how many times a fly has sex?

Good to know insects have hoes & freaks too. Next time a guy gets too judgmental, I'll just tell him he should be thankful he's not dating a bee.

gywjjhkkkkkfffxgyhdechjygvggds blahblahblah just tell us the name of the insect not story story. Not everybody like reading long biology crap!

Vessi:

Hey you See how you guys have it better? Male bees be depressed because their females are too sl^tty. Aren't you glad ?

LaBellaMafiaZA:

Hey you See how you guys have it better? Male bees be depressed because their females are too sl^tty. Aren't you glad ?

Hahahaha. Nature has cheated the female bees by making their males more reserved and the females more perverted
Sounds good to me, if only nature can bring it to humanity/human beings.

Vessi:
Hahahaha. Nature has cheated the female bees by making their males more reserved and the females more perverted
Sounds good to me, if only nature can bring it to humanity/human beings.

No, nature should have made human females more like black widow spiders. They s*x the males up then eat them How do you like that?

Insects are having it hard yo. It's either sl*ts or psycho killers who nom-nom their mates.

LaBellaMafiaZA:

No, nature should have made human females more like black widow spiders. They s*x the males up then eat them How do you like that?

I'd rather be born a bee

LaBellaMafiaZA: Insects are having it hard yo. It's either sl*ts or psycho killers who nom-nom their mates.

And also if you're an insect, life is tough cause birds can never eat enough

Vessi:
I'd rather be born a bee

LMAO!!! You freak

Vessi:
And also if you're an insect, life is tough cause birds can never eat enough

Ja neh. Life is hard God's smaller creatures. I own 2 birds, a male & female zebra finch. When the female is pissed, she plucks him bald & there's nothing he can do about it.

#WHIPPED

LaBellaMafiaZA:

LMAO!!! You freak

freak ke? It's about enjoying to full potential, all there is in life.

Vessi:
freak ke? It's about enjoying to full potential, all there is in life.

*slowly nods*

LaBellaMafiaZA:

Ja neh. Life is hard God's smaller creatures. I own 2 birds, a male & female zebra finch. When the female is pissed, she plucks him bald & there's nothing he can do about it.

#WHIPPED

LMAO. So birds behave as gentlemen too? But in this case, gentlebird

Vessi:
LMAO. So birds behave as gentlemen too? But in this case, gentlebird

Of course! lol @ gentlebird.

But some men are like that too. I remember one girl I knew in my hometown. She started dating this dude but didnt know that he had a psycho baby mama. So one night the baby mama walked in on them while they were still in bed, carrying a stick to bleksem them both. My friend said the guy started hiding behind her, crying, pleading & saying "Baby, please dont hit me". He was genuinely afraid of his baby mama because she often kicked his lame @ss, yet he loved women.

P*ssified men. Yuck.

LaBellaMafiaZA:

Of course! lol @ gentlebird.

But some men are like that too. I remember one girl I knew in my hometown. She started dating this dude but didnt know that he had a psycho baby mama. So one night the baby mama walked in on them while they were still in bed, carrying a stick to bleksem them both. My friend said the guy started hiding behind her, crying, pleading & saying "Baby, please dont hit me". He was genuinely afraid of his baby mama because she often kicked his lame @ss, yet he loved women.

P*ssified men. Yuck.

what a comic relief. Such a scene would be epic, wish I were there these guys scared of their baby mama/wife/gf and cry to them crack my ribs. FVck

He's just as your male zebra finch.
Maybe I'd start calling such men LaBella's male zebra finch
SMH at men behaving as animals.

Vessi:
what a comic relief. Such a scene would be epic, wish I were there these guys scared of their baby mama/wife/gf and cry to them crack my ribs. FVck

He's just as your male zebra finch.
Maybe I'd start calling such men LaBella's male zebra finch

LMAO! Truly bytchmade. Wack.

But sometimes I suspect that they've been bewitched. Love potions & whatnot. How can a man be such a weak sauce? Damn. So unattractive.

LaBellaMafiaZA:

LMAO! Truly bytchmade. Wack.

But sometimes I suspect that they've been bewitched. Love potions & whatnot. How can a man be such a weak sauce? Damn. So unattractive.

LOL you believe in magic? LOL at weak sauce, me thinks it boils down to the man's level of self-esteem, how he was raised, personality, childhood environment. Or maybe he justs believes crying, rolling on the floor, swearing and begging his baby mama would save him from his her wrath.

Vessi:
LOL you believe in magic? LOL at weak sauce, me thinks it boils down to the man's level of self-esteem, how he was raised, personality, childhood environment. Or maybe he justs believes crying, rolling on the floor, swearing and begging his baby mama would save him from his her wrath.

Man, I dont know if I believe in magic or not, but I have witnessed some really odd behaviours. One of them was through my male cousin. He fell for this fugly old woman & my aunt was enraged. She pleaded with him to stop seeing her because it was embarrassing. But he claimed to be in love so my aunt kicked him out of the house. He went to live with her. Became this domesticated little weasel that catered to her every whim. But the "relationship" ended eventually & to this day, he still doesnt know why he fought everyone to be with some old hag.

It was world war 3 in that house because of that woman. The boy was smitten & hypotized by thunder thighs. SMH

LaBellaMafiaZA:

Man, I dont know if I believe in magic or not, but I have witnessed some really odd behaviours. One of them was through my male cousin. He fell for this fugly old woman & my aunt was enraged. She pleaded with him to stop seeing her because it was embarrassing. But he claimed to be in love so my aunt kicked him out of the house. He went to live with her. Became this domesticated little weasel that catered to her every whim. But the "relationship" ended eventually & to this day, he still doesnt know why he fought everyone to be with some old hag.

It was world war 3 in that house because of that woman. The boy was smitten & hypotized by thunder thighs. SMH

The power of sweet pvssy can't be over-emphasized

Vessi:
The power of sweet pvssy can't be over-emphasized

At least you know the enemy

LaBellaMafiaZA:

At least you know the enemy

Pray tell me.