研究表明，性使蜂后失明

研究表明，性使蜂后失明，从而抑制其滥交行为

They say love is blind, but bees take that literally.

人们说爱情是盲目的，但蜜蜂却把这句话当真了。

Bee sperm causes temporary blindness in honeybee queens, making it harder for them to fly off and mate with other males until the effect wears off.

蜜蜂的精子会导致蜂后暂时失明，这使得它们很难飞离并与其他雄性交配，直到这种效果消失。

“For social insects like honeybees, it is beneficial if their queens mate with many males,” said the study, published this month in the journal eLife. That’s because having lots of bee baby-daddies “can protect the hive against parasites.” So queens go on dayslong “mating flight” benders, during which they get impregnated by multiple bees and accumulate enough sperm for a lifetime.

本月发表在《生活》杂志上的这项研究称：“对于蜜蜂这样的群居昆虫来说，蜂后与许多雄性交配是有益的。”这是因为有很多蜜蜂宝宝爸爸“可以保护蜂巢免受寄生虫的侵害”，所以蜂后们每天都会进行“交配飞行”活动，在这期间，它们会被多只蜜蜂受精，并积累足够一生使用的精子。

The more males who inseminate the queen, though, the fewer kids the queen has from each partner. This poses a problem for the bee daddies, who want to have as many babies with the queen as possible. And so honeybee dudes kill their queen’s buzz — by blinding them with their semen.

然而，越多的雄性给蜂后授精，蜂后从每一个伴侣那里得到的孩子就越少。这给蜜蜂爸爸们带来了一个问题，他们想和蜂后生尽可能多的孩子。因此，蜜蜂兄弟们用精液使蜂后失明，以此来杀死蜂后的嗡嗡声。

Exposure to honeybee “seminal fluid” poisons queens, scientists found, causing a “significant decrease in visual perception,” thus locking the genders in “a sexual arms race.” Queens attempt to counteract the blinding by fleeing quickly after sex, but the honey-daddy agenda often works anyway, thereby reducing “queen promiscuity.”

科学家发现，暴露在蜜蜂的“精液”中会毒害蜂王，导致“视觉感知能力显著下降”，从而将两性锁定在“性军备竞赛”中。蜂后们试图通过性爱后迅速逃离来抵消失明的影响，但无论如何，“蜜糖爸爸”的计划往往奏效，因此减少了“蜂后的滥交”。

Researchers tested the hypothesis by electronically tracking semen-exposed queens’ and saline-exposed queens’ responsiveness to light. Queens that had just had sex were “more likely to get lost and to not return to their hives” than the queens exposed only to saline.

研究人员通过电子追踪暴露在精液中的蜂后和暴露在盐水中的蜂后对光的反应来验证这一假设。与只接触盐水的蜂后相比，刚发生过性关系的蜂后“更容易迷路，也更不可能回到蜂巢”。