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Scientists have got strong support for the evolutionary theory of kin selection, according to scienceworldreport.

Researchers looked into the kin selection by examining the social behavior of female worker honey bees. The finding was that the genes passed on from the queen bee help to direct the worker bees' altruism, as they give up producing offspring in order to bring up their siblings.

After the queen dies, the workers are in a selfish competition to lay eggs, due to the genes inherited from their fathers.

"We usually think of honey bees as ideal cooperators, with all the members of the colony working together harmoniously," said Christina Grozinger, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Our studies demonstrate that there is actually conflict-called intragenomic conflict---among the genes inherited from the father and those inherited from the mother."

It was found that in any normal colony, the queen is the egg-laying member, while the workers are sterile, just helping to raise her offspring. After her death, workers may altruistically remain sterile, or become selfish and start to "activate their own ovaries".

The conflict among workers arises from a skewed distribution of the matrigenes and patrigenes Altruism is linked to matrigenes and gets passed on with the genes. Otherwise, if it is a selfish behaviour, the patrigenes gets passed on.

"It is very strange to think that your genes might be fighting with each other based on whether that came from your mother or your father," said David Queller, one of the researchers. "Yet, this is just what we found. It turns out that when a queen dies, worker bees behave the way their fathers want them to, producing sons when possible."

The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.