SIGNIFICANCE: • The laying workers of the Cape honey bee continue to negatively affect the South African beekeeping industry, with more losses suffered in the northern regions of the country. • The reproductive parasites ...

Cohesion in social insect colonies is maintained by use of chemical signals produced by the queen, workers, and brood. In honey bees in particular, signals from the queen and brood are crucial for the regulation of ...

Kairomones are semiochemicals that are emitted by an organism and which mediate interspecific interaction that is of benefit to an organism of another species that receives these chemical substances. Parasitoids find and ...

Stingless bees are important pollinators of plants, and also producers of honey. Species within the African stingless bee genus Hypotrigona are difficult to differentiate due to morphological similarities. Chemical profiles ...

The honeybee queen’s mandibular gland pheromones (QMP) are essential for the suppression of worker reproduction. Worker ovary activation is regulated by alternative splicing of a CP2-transcription factor named gemini. Since ...

Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) is a method widely used to determine changes and differences in gene expression. As target gene expression is most often quantified relative to the expression of ...

Wildflower strips are increasingly promoted in pollinator conservation schemes to maintain the stability of ecosystem services and increase crop yield. Yet, the increased area of avocado Persea americana Mill. cultivation ...

The riverine tsetse fly Glossina fuscipes fuscipes is a major vector of trypanosome pathogens causing African trypanosomiasis. This fly species uses a combination of olfactory and visual cues to locate its hosts. Previously, ...

Secretions from tergal glands are part of a queen’s pheromonal control of worker reproduction in honey bees. However, in queenless honey bee colonies, workers compete to gain pheromonal, and hence reproductive dominance, ...

The efficiency of an autodissemination technique in controlling adult whiteflies, Trialeurodes vaporariorum Westwood (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) on tomato, Solunum lycopersicum was investigated with previously identified ...