Some females start nests by themselves. They lay eggs in the cells and rear the first batch of workers to take over the colony chores. However, in some colonies a group of queens comes together to build a nest. The first round of brood becomes the first set of workers and takes over most of the chores. When the two wasp foundresses come together, there is an alpha individual, the highest ranked, and a beta individual, the lowest ranked.
Alpha lays the most eggs.
Beta may lay a significant fraction of the eggs. Skew theory says that under some circumstances, it would be beneficial for alpha to give up reproductive rights to beta in a profit-sharing way just to keep beta helping at the nest, instead of going off to nest on her own. Skew theory s basic premise is that there is a transaction between the two group members. For example, alpha relinquishes reproduction to a subordinate in order to keep the subordinate at the nest. Reeve says that his research shows that the more closely related alpha and beta are, the less of the reproduction alpha gives up to beta in order to keep her around, just as the theory predicts.