“…Colonies of a minority of species of social bees, ants and wasps are comprised of genetically distinct patrilines of workers because the queens that head them have each mated with multiple males (polyandry). Extremely polyandrous mating behav-iour has evolved repeatedly in eusocial groups such as the army and driver ants (Eciton, Dorylus; Kronauer et al, 2004Kronauer et al, , 2006, leaf-cutter ants (Atta, Acromyrmex; Villesen et al, 2002), harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex; Wiernasz et al, 2004), yellow jacket wasps (Vespula; Foster and Ratnieks, 2001) and honey bees (Apis; Oldroyd and Wongsiri, 2006;Palmer and Oldroyd, 2000;Tarpy et al, 2004). Thus, extreme polyandry presents a fascinating challenge to the predicted scenario of high levels of intracolonial relatedness in eusocial hymenopteran colonies.…”