Our goal is simply to propose that certain traits and habitats should correlate with given life histories, while others (such as a tropical slave-maker with an obligately-sterile worker caste) should be highly unlikely.
In the Hymenoptera there are three types of social parasites in which the brood are raised by host workers: temporary social parasites, slave-makers (dulotics), and inquilines or permanent social parasites.
Allozyme studies of temporary social parasites and facultative slave-makers in the genus Formica indicate multiple-mating by queens, but mating frequency ranges from close to 1.
In species where social parasitism is temporary or in species that are facultative slave-makers (the workers can and do take care of brood if slaves are not available), nonconspecific brood care may be present for only one or a few cohorts of larvae and perhaps only during a season where queens would have a low survival rate (Fig.
If the colony relocates, they carry the slave-makers one by one to the new site.
When the slave-makers reach the target nest, they spray it with a chemical that forces the Formica adults to flee, leaving behind most of the young.