Abstract:
One of the responses that honey bee workers can make in the event
of queen loss is to develop into false queens. False queens are
workers that exhibit both behavioural and physiological traits similar
to those of a true queen. However, the presence of more than one
false queen in a colony distorts the established hierarchies. As
transformation into a false queen occurs after emergence as an adult,
we tested the effect of worker mobile pheromone carriers (PCs)
treated with exogenously supplied pheromones on their nestmates.
The PCs carried either synthetic mandibular gland pheromones or
pheromones extracted from Apis mellifera capensis parasitic workers.
Only the PCs attracted retinues of workers, increased pheromone
production and activated their ovaries, becoming false queens.
Pheromones from A. m. capensis workers were more effective than
extracts of commercially available synthetic queen pheromones in
eliciting these effects. Using this simple mobile pheromone delivery
system, we have shown that carrying amounts of exogenous
pheromone can induce pheromone production in the carrier,
resulting in the production of false queens within experimental
groups. Possible implications of using this technique to modify and
regulate worker reproduction in colonies are discussed.
