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Academic Staff - Associate Professor Madeleine Beekman

Madeleine Beekman
Position: Queen Elizabeth II Fellow  and Director of First Year Biology
Phone: +61 2 9351 8779
Fax: +61 2 9351 4771
Mobile Phone: +61 437 871 542
Email: madeleine.beekman@sydney.edu.au
Location: Room 249
Address: A12 - Macleay, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006 Australia 
Links: Behaviour and Genetics of Social Insects lab

Areas of Interest

  • Importance of individual decision-making and information transfer in honeybees
  • Optimization in natural systems: ants, bees and slime moulds
  • Movement of animal groups
  • Conflicts over reproduction in social animals
  • Why are cold-blooded creatures lonely?
  • The Cape honeybee Apis mellifera capensis
  • Please see my personal page for more details.

Research Output

  • Beekman M, Allsopp MH, Holmes MJ, Lim J, Noach-Pienaar L-A, Wossler TC & Oldroyd BP 2012. Racial mixing in South African honeybees: the effects of genotype mixing on reproductive traits of workers. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 66: 897-904.
  • Ramsch K, Reid CR, Beekman M & Middendorf M 2012. A mathematical model of foraging in a dynamic environment by trail-laying Argentine ants. Journal of Theoretical Biology 306: 32-45.
  • Granovskiy B, Latty T, Duncan M, Sumpter DJT & Beekman M (2012). How dancing honey bees keep track of changes: the role of inspector bees. Behavioral Ecology 23: 588-596.
  • Schaerf TM, Myerscough MR, Makinson JC & Beekman M (2011). Inaccurate and unverified information in decision making - a model for the nest site selection process of Apis florea. Animal Behaviour 82: 995-1013.
  • Beekman, M., M. H. Allsopp, Lim, J, Goudie, F., and Oldroyd BP (2011). "Asexually produced Cape honeybee queens (Apis mellifera capensis) reproduce sexually." Journal of Heredity 102 (5): 562-566.
  • Diwold K, Schaerf TM, Myerwcoough MM, Middendorf M & Beekman M 2011. Deciding on the wing: in-flight decision making and search space sampling in the red dwarf honeybee Apis florea. Swarm Intelligence 5: 121-141.
  • Makinson JC, Oldroyd BP, Schaerf TM, Wattanachaiyingchareon W, Beekman M (2011) Moving home: nest site selection in the Red Dwarf honeybee (Apis florea). Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 65 (5):945-958
  • Boomsma JJ, Beekman M, Cornwallis CK , Griffin AS, Holman L, Hughes WOH, Keller L, Oldroyd BP & Ratnieks FLW. (2011) Only full-sibling families evolved eusociality. Nature 471:E4-E5 doi:10.1038/nature09832
  • Oldroyd B, Allsopp MH, Lim J, Beekman, M. 2011. A thelytokous lineage of socially parasitic honey bees has retained heterozygosity despite at least 10 years of inbreeding. Evolution 65-3: 860 - 868.
  • Reid CR, Sumpter DJT & Beekman M. 2011. Optimization in a Natural System: Argentine Ants Solve the Towers of Hanoi. Journal of Experimental Biology 214: 50-58.
  • Chen T, Beekman M & Ward AJW. 2011. The role of dominance hierarchies in the mating behaviour of mosquitofish. Biology Letters 7: 343-345.
  • Oldroyd BP, Allsopp MH, Lim J & Beekman M. 2011. A thelytokous lineage of socially parasitic honey bees has retained heterozygosity despite at least 10 years of inbreeding. Evolution doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2010.01164.x.
  • Latty T & Beekman M. 2011 Irrational decision-making in an amoeboid organism: transitivity and context-dependent preferences. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 278: 307-312.
  • Holmes MJ, Allsopp MH, Noach-Pienaar L-A, Wossler TC, Oldroyd BP, Beekman M. 2011. Sperm utilization in South African honeybees (Apis mellifera scutellata and A. m. capensis). Apidologie 42: 23-28 http://www.apidologie.org/10.1051/apido/2010031
  • Latty T, Ramsch K, Ito K, Nakagaki T, Sumpter DJT, Middendorf M & Beekman M. 2011. Structure and formation of ant transportation networks. Journal of the Royal Society Interface: doi:10.1098/rsif.2010.0612.
  • Latty T & Beekman M. 2011. Speed-accuracy tradeoffs during foraging decisions in the acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: 278: 539-545.
  • Lo, N, Beekman M & Oldroyd BP 2010. Caste in social insects: genetic influences over caste determination. Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior. M. D. Breed and J. Moore (eds). Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1: 254-260.
  • Diwold, K, Beekman M, Middelndorf M. 2010. Bee nest site selection as an optimization process. Artificial Life XII. Proceedings of the twelfth international conference on the synthesis and simulation of living systems. H. Fellerman, M. Dörr, M. M. Hanczycet al, The MIT Press: 626-633.
  • Michael J. Holmes, Benjamin P. Oldroyd, Michael H. Allsopp, Julianne Lim, Theresa C. Wossler, and Madeleine Beekman. 2010. Maternity of emergency queens in the Cape honey bee, Apis mellifera capensis. Molecular Ecology 19: 2792-2799.
  • Schwander T, Lo N, Beekman M, Oldroyd BP & Keller L. 2010. Nature versus nurture in social insect caste differentiation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution25: 275-282
  • Chapman NC, Higgs JS, Wattanachaiyingcharoen W, Beekman M & Oldroyd BP. 2010. Worker reproductive parasitism in naturally orphaned colonies of the Asias red dwarf honey bee, Apis florea. Insectes Sociaux 57: 163-167
  • Chapman NC, Beekman M & Oldroyd BP. 2010. Worker reproductive parasitism and drift in the western honeybee Apis mellifera. Behavioral Ecology and Sciobiology 64: 419-427.
  • Dussutour A, Latty T, Beekman M, Simpson SJ. 2010. Amoeboid organism solves complex nutritional challenges. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107, 4607-4611.
  • Allsopp MH, Beekman M, Gloag RS, Oldroyd BP. 2010. Maternity of replacement queens in the thelytokous Cape honey bee Apis mellifera capensis. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 64, 567-574.
  • Latty T, Beekman M. 2010. Food quality and the risk of light exposure affect patch-choice decisions in the slime mold Physarum polycephalum. Ecology 91, 22-27.
  • Latty T & Beekman M. 2009. Food quality affects search strategy in the acellular slime mould, Physarum polycephalum. Behavioral Ecology 20: 1160-1167.
  • Dussutour A, Beekman M, Nicolis SC & Meyer B. 2009. Noise improves collective decision-making by ants in dynamic environments. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 276: 4353-4361 .
  • Chapman NC, Makinson J, Beekman M & Oldroyd BP. 2009. Honeybee (Apis mellifera) guards use adaptive acceptance thresholds to limit worker reproductive parasitism. Animal Behaviour 78: 1205-1211.
  • Oldroyd BP & Beekman M. 2009. Intergenerational reproductive parasitism in a stingless bee. Molecular Ecology 18: 3958-3960.
  • Dussutour A, Nicolis SC, Shephard G, Beekman M & Sumpter DJT. 2009. The role of multiple pheromones in food recruitment by ants. Journal of Experimental Biology 212: 2337-2348
  • Chapman NC, Nanork P, Gloag RS, Wattanachaiyingcharoen W, Beekman M & Oldroyd BP. 2009. Queenless honey bee (Apis florea) colonies are infiltrated by workers from other queenless nests. Behavioral Ecology: 20: 817-820.
  • Latty T, Duncan M & Beekman M. 2009. High bee traffic disrupts transfer of directional information in flying honey bee swarms. Animal Behaviour: 78: 117-121.
  • Beekman, M., M. H. Allsopp, L. A. Jordan, J. Lim, and B. P. Oldroyd. 2009. A quantitative study of worker reproduction in queenright colonies of the Cape honey bee Apis mellifera capensis. Molecular Ecology 18:2722-2727.
  • Chapman NC, Beekman M, Oldroyd BP. 2009. Several workers lay eggs in the same brood cell in queenless honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies, Insectes Sociaux 56: 103-105.
  • Oldroyd BP, Allsopp MH, Gloag RS, Lim J, Jordan LA and Beekman M. 2008. Thelytokous Parthenogenesis in Unmated Queen Honeybees (Apis mellifera capensis): Central Fusion and High Recombination Rates. Genetics 180: 359-366 .
  • Gloag, RS, Beekman M, Heard TA & Oldroyd BP. 2008. Nest defence in a stingless bee: What causes fighting swarms in Trigona carbonaria (Hymenoptera: Meliponini)? Insectes Sociaux: 55: 387-391.
  • Chapman NC, Nanork P, Reddy MS, Baht NS, Beekman M & Oldroyd BP. 2008. Nestmate recognition by guards of the Asian hive bee (Apis cerana). Insectes Sociaux: 55: 382-386.
  • Oldroyd BP, Gloag RS, Even N & Wattanachaiyingcharoen W & Beekman M. 2008. Nest-site selection in the open-nesting honey bee Apis florea. Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology 62 (10): 1643-1653.
  • Beekman M & Oldroyd BP. 2008. Who is the Queen's mother? Royal cheats in social insects. Journal of Biosciences 32(2): 159-161.
  • Jordan LA, Allsopp MH, Beekman M, Wossler, TC & Oldroyd BP. 2008. Inheritance of traits associated with reproductive potential in Apis mellifera capensis and A. m. scutellata workers. Journal of Heredity 99 (4): 376-381.
  • Hughes WOH, Oldroyd BP, Beekman M & Ratnieks FLW. 2008. Ancestral monogamy shows kin selection is key to the evolution of eusociality. Science 320: 1213-1216.
  • Beekman M , Gloag RS, Even N, Wattanachaiyingcharoen W & Oldroyd BP. 2008. Dance precision of Apis florea - clues to the evolution of the honey bee dance language? Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology 62: 1259-1265.
  • Oldroyd BP & Beekman M. 2008. Effects of selection for honey bee worker reproduction on foraging traits. PLoS Biology 6 (3): e56. Doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060056.
  • Beekman M, Gloag RS, Even N, Wattanachaiyingchareon W & Oldroyd BP. 2008. Dance precision of Apis florea – clues to the evolution of the honey bee dance language? Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology: doi: 10.1007/s00265-008-0554-z.
  • Jordan LA, Allsopp MH, Oldroyd BP, Wossler TC & Beekman M. 2008. Cheating workers produce royal offspring. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B 275: 345-351. and supplementary material
  • Beekman M & Lew JB. 2008. Foraging honeybees – when does it pay to dance? Behavioral Ecology: 19 (2): 255-261.
  • Beekman M & Oldroyd BP. 2008. When workers disunite: Intra-specific parasitism in eusocial bees. Annual Review of Entomology 53:19-37.
  • Beekman M, Allsopp MH, Wossler TC & Oldroyd BP. 2008. Factors affecting the dynamics of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) hybrid zone in South Africa. Heredity: 100: 13-18
  • Gloag, R.S., Beekman M., Heard T.A. & B.P. Oldroyd. 2008. No worker reproduction in the Australian stingless bee, Trigona carbonaria Smith (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Insectes Sociaux 54: 412-417.
  • Janson S & Beekman M. 2007. Honeybees moving home - the effect of swarm size on decision-making. European Conference on Complex System, October, Dresden, Germany (refereed conference proceedings).
  • Jordan LA, Allsopp MH, Oldroyd BP, Wossler TC & Beekman M. 2007. A scientific note on the drone flight time of Apis mellifera capensis and A. m. scutellata. Apidologie 38: 436-437
  • Beekman, M., Martin, S.J., Drijfhout, F. & B.P. Oldroyd. 2007. Higher removal rate of eggs laid by anarchistic queens - a cost of anarchy? Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology 61: 1847 - 1853
  • Beekman M, Gilchrist AL, Duncan, M & Sumpter DJT. 2007. What makes a honeybee scout? Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology: 61:985-995.
  • Janson S, Middendorf M & Beekman M. 2007. Searching for a new home - scouting behavior of honeybee swarms. Behavioral Ecology: 18: 384-392.
  • Oldroyd BP, Reddy MS, Chapman NC, Thompson GJ & Beekman M. 2006. Evidence for reproductive isolation between two colour morphs of cavity nesting honey bees (Apis) in south India. Insectes Sociaux: 53: 429-434.
  • Beekman M, Peeters C & O'Riain MJ. 2006 Developmental divergence: neglected variable in understanding the evolution of reproductive skew in social animals. Behavioral Ecology:17(4): 622-627. online access
  • Baalen van M & Beekman M. 2006. The costs and benefits of genetic heterogeneity in resistance against parasites in social insects. The American Naturalist 167: 568 - 577
  • Beekman M, Fathke RL & Seeley TD. 2006. How does an informed minority of scouts guide a honey bee swarm as it flies to its new home? Animal Behaviour. 71: 161-171
  • Jones J, Helliwell,P, Beekman M, Maleska R & Oldroyd BP. 2005. The effects of rearing temperature on developmental stability and learning and memory in the honey bee, Apis mellifera. Journal of Comparative Physiology A 191: 1121-1129
  • Beekman M, Doyen, L. & Oldroyd BP. 2005. Increase in dance imprecision with decreasing foraging distance in the honey bee Apis mellifera L. is partly explained by physical constraints. Journal of Comparative Physiology A191: 1107-1113
  • Beekman M. 2005. How long will honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) be stimulated to revisit past-profitable forage sites? Journal of Comparative Physiology A 191: 1115-1120
  • Beekman M & Oldroyd BP. 2005. Honey bee workers use cues other than egg viability for policing. Biology Letters 1(2): 129-132
  • Janson S, Middendorf M & Beekman M. 2005. Honey bee swarms: How do scouts guide a swarm of uninformed bees? Animal Behaviour 70 (2): 349-358
  • Beekman M, Martin CG & Oldroyd BP. 2004. Similar policing rates of eggs laid by virgin and mated honey-bee queens. Naturwissenschaften.91: 598-601 .
  • Beekman M, Sumpter DJT, Seraphides N & Ratnieks FLW. 2004. Comparing foraging behaviour of small and large honey bee colonies by decoding waggle dances made by foragers. Functional Ecology 18: 829-835.
  • Beekman, M. 2004. Is Her Majesty at home? Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 19: 505-506
  • Martin CG, Oldroyd BP & Beekman M. 2004. Differential reproductive success among subfamilies in queenless honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) colonies. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 56: 42-49
  • Beekman, M. 2004. Buzy buzzers. Trends in Ecology and Evolution.19: 65-66
  • Beekman M & Ratnieks FLW. 2003. Power over reproduction in social Hymenoptera. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London series B. 358: 1741-1755.
  • Beekman, M. & B.P. Oldroyd. 2003. Different policing rates of eggs laid by queenright and queenless anarchistic honey-bee workers (Apis mellifera L.) Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology 54: 480-484
  • Sumpter DJT & Beekman M. 2003. From non-linearity to optimality: pheromone trail foraging by ants. Animal Behaviour 66: 273-280
  • Beekman, M., Komdeur, J. & FLW. Ratnieks. 2003. Reproductive conflicts in social animals: who has power? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 18: 277-282
  • Beekman M & Oldroyd BP. 2003. Effects of cross-feeding anarchistic and wild type honey bees: Anarchistic workers are not queen-like. Naturwissenschaften. 90: 189-192
  • Beekman M, Oldroyd BP & Myerscough MR. 2003. Sticking to their choice - honey bee subfamilies abandon declining food sources at a slow but uniform rate. Ecological Entomology 28(2): 233-236
  • Beekman M, Good G, Allsopp MH, Radloff SE, Pirk CWW & Ratnieks FLW. 2002. A non-policing honey bee colony (Apis mellifera capensis). Naturwissenschaften 89: 479-482
  • Beekman M, Wossler TC, Martin SJ & Ratnieks FLW. 2002 Parasitic Cape honey bee workers (Apis mellifera capensis) are not given differential treatment by African guards (Apis mellifera scutellata). Insectes Sociaux 49: 216-220
  • Beekman M, Calis JNM, Oldroyd BP & Ratnieks FLW. 2002. When do honey bee guards reject their former nestmates after swarming? Insectes Sociaux 49: 56-61.
  • Calis JNM, Boot WJ, Allsopp MH & Beekman M. 2002. Taking more than a fair share: Nutrition of worker larvae related to social parasitism in the Cape honey bee Apis mellifera capensis. Apidologie 33:193-202 .
  • Martin SJ, Beekman M, Wossler TC & Ratnieks FLW. 2002. Parasitic Cape honeybee workers, Apis mellifera capensis, evade policing. Nature 415: 163-165.
  • Beekman M, Sumpter DJ & Ratnieks FLW. 2001. Phase transition between disordered and ordered foraging in Pharaohs’ ants. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 98 (17): 9703-9706.
  • Beekman M. 2001. The evolution of social behaviour in microorganisms. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 16 (11): 606-607.
  • Beekman M & Ratnieks FLW. 2000. Long range foraging in the honeybee Apis mellifera. Funct. Ecol. 14:4: 490-496.
  • Beekman M & van Stratum P. 2000. Does the diapause experience of bumblebee queens Bombus terrestris affect colony characteristics? Ecol. Entomol. 25:1-6.
  • Beekman M, Calis J N M & Boot W J. 2000. Parasitic honeybees get royal treatment. Nature 404: 723.
  • Beekman M, van Stratum P & Lingeman R. 2000. Artificial rearing of bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) selects against heavy queens. J. Apic. Res. 39(1-2): 61-65.
  • Beekman M & van Stratum P. 1999. Respiration in bumblebee queens: effect of life phase on the discontinuous ventilation cycle. Entom. Exp. et Appl. 92: 295-298
  • Beekman M, van Stratum P & Veerman A. 1999. Selection for non-diapause in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris, with notes on the effect of inbreeding. Entom. Exp. et Appl. 93 (1): 69-75.
  • Beekman M & van Stratum P. 1998. Bumblebee sex ratios: Why do bumblebees produce so many males? Proc. R. Soc. London B. 265: 1535-1543.
  • Beekman M, van Stratum P & Lingeman R. 1998. Diapause survival and post-diapause performance of bumblebee queens (Bombus terrestris). Entom. Exp. et Appl. 89: 207-214.
  • Beekman M, Lingeman R, Kleijne FM & Sabelis MW. 1998. Optimal timing of the production of sexuals in bumblebee colonies. Entom. Exp. et Appl. 88: 147-154.
  • Veerman A, Beekman M & Veenendaal RL. 1988. Photoperiodic induction of diapause in the large white butterfly, Pieris brassicae: evidence for hourglass time measurement. J Insect Physiol 34: 1063-1069.