Being promiscuous in the female species may not be such a bad thing after all, for a new research on queen bees has found that those who indulge in lengthy sex marathons with multiple drones, are the ones who build the healthiest colonies.

The study was conducted by apiculturalists (bee experts) David Tarpy at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, US and Thomas Seeley at Cornell University in Ithaca, US.

The experts found that queen bees who mate with multiple drones foster a wider genetic variation—something that helps them in fending off a debilitating disease.

"Insects living very closely in nutrient-rich environments are hotbeds for micro-organisms—they need mechanisms to protect against disease," the New Scientist quoted Tarpy, as saying.

As a part of the study, Tarpy inseminated honeybee queens with the sperm of either one or 10 drones, and 24 "multiple-mate" queens and 25 singly-mated queens were then encouraged to set up colonies. Once the colonies were established, Seeley then sprayed them with water tainted with American foulbrood disease—a highly virulent infector of bee larvae.

The researches found that though no colonies had completely escaped infection, when checked at a period of five and nine weeks, those colonies which had been fathered by multiple drones were significantly stronger and experienced less intense outbreaks of disease, thus suggesting that multiple mating increases a colony's resistance to parasites.

"Honeybee queens are hedging their bets by mating with many males," he said. Francis Ratnieks, who heads up Sheffield University's Apiculture and Social Insect Laboratory in the UK, further supported the study.

"This is convincing evidence that multiple-mated hives seem to suffer less disease. There are lots of ideas in this area, but not many good experimental studies," Ratnieks said.