No abstract

In most species of social insect the queen signals her presence to her workers via pheromones. Worker responses to queen pheromones include retinue formation around the queen, inhibition of queen cell production and suppression of worker ovary activation. Here we show that the queen signal of the Brazilian stingless bee Friesella schrottkyi is a mixture of cuticular hydrocarbons. Stingless bees are therefore similar to ants, wasps and bumble bees, but differ from honey bees in which the queen's signal mostly comprises volatile compounds originating from the mandibular glands. This shows that cuticular hydrocarbons have independently evolved as the queen's signal across multiple taxa, and that the honey bees are exceptional. We also report the distribution of four active queen-signal compounds by Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) imaging. The results indicate a relationship between the behavior of workers towards the queen and the likely site of secretion of the queen's pheromones.

T.M. Nunes et al. lyzed. There were significant differences between bees from different colonies, workers of different age and between workers and virgin queens.

Chemical compounds on the cuticle are a rich source of information used during interactions among social insects. Despite the multitude of studies on these substances and their function in ants, wasps, and honeybees, little is known about this subject in stingless bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae, Meliponini). We studied the chemical composition of the cuticle of the stingless bee, Frieseomelitta varia, by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), to investigate potential chemical variation among castes, gender, age, and reproductive status. We found differences in the cuticular hydrocarbon composition among workers, males, and queens, recording both qualitative and quantitative differences among individuals of different ages and gender. The cuticle of physogastric queens presented a chemical profile that was distinct from all other groups in the analysis, with high relative abundances of alkenes and alkadienes with 27, 29, and 31 carbon atoms. We discuss the possibility that these compounds signal a queen's presence to the colony, thereby initiating all vital worker-queen interactions.