Pheromone relay networks in the honeybee: messenger workers distribute the queen's fertility signal throughout the hive.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The harmonious operation of many insect societies depends upon colony-wide dissemination of a non-volatile pheromone produced by a single queen, which informs workers of her presence. This represents a major challenge in large colonies. Honeybee colonies, which can exceed 60,000 bees, are believed to solve this challenge using 'messenger' workers that actively relay the queen pheromone throughout the hive. However, little is known about the structure and effectiveness of the underlying relay network or the biology of messaging.

Results

Here, we combine automated tracking with modelling to address these outstanding questions. We find that both queen movement and worker messaging play fundamental roles in queen pheromone dissemination. Fine-grained analyses of worke

SUBMITTER: Richardson TO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11658054 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature