Some species of wasps are social. The queen starts a colony from scratch each spring. She builds a small nest, and lays and raises a group of female workers. The workers enlarge the nest while the queen continues to lay eggs. Unfertilized eggs become males that mate with newly hatched females. All of the wasps except the newly fertilized females die by the summer.

The workers spend their lives enlarging the nest and helping the queen raise offspring, but they do not produce the next generation themselves. The newly fertilized females survive to start colonies, so the behavior helps the species continue even though it is not directly beneficial to every individual wasp, especially the workers that die. Thus, the best choice is “It is beneficial to the whole species, but not to all of the individual members.”

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