TY - JOUR
T1 - Honeybees Dufour's gland - Idiosyncrasy of a new queen signal
AU - Katzav-Gozansky, Tamar
AU - Soroker, Victoria
AU - Hefetz, Abraham
PY - 2002
Y1 - 2002
N2 - Dufour's gland (DG) secretion of queens in Apis mellifera is normally caste specific. In queenright (QR) workers it is composed of odd n alkanes, while in queens it also possesses long chain esters. However, glandular expression is plastic since queenless (QL) workers produce a queen-like secretion. Moreover, QR gland incubated in vitro produced these esters, indicating that glandular activity is regulated. We tested the hypothesis that the secretion is an egg marking pheromone. Chemical analysis of the egg coating revealed minute amounts of the queen esters, but neither queen secretion nor the synthetic esters were able to protect worker-laid eggs from policing, refuting the hypothesis. Analysis of abdominal tips further revealed that Dufour's egg secretion is also smeared on the abodominal cuticle, suggesting that its presence on egg surface may be due to passive contamination. Next, we tested the hypothesis that the secretion serves as a queen signal. Indeed queens, but not worker glandular secretion were attractive to workers.
AB - Dufour's gland (DG) secretion of queens in Apis mellifera is normally caste specific. In queenright (QR) workers it is composed of odd n alkanes, while in queens it also possesses long chain esters. However, glandular expression is plastic since queenless (QL) workers produce a queen-like secretion. Moreover, QR gland incubated in vitro produced these esters, indicating that glandular activity is regulated. We tested the hypothesis that the secretion is an egg marking pheromone. Chemical analysis of the egg coating revealed minute amounts of the queen esters, but neither queen secretion nor the synthetic esters were able to protect worker-laid eggs from policing, refuting the hypothesis. Analysis of abdominal tips further revealed that Dufour's egg secretion is also smeared on the abodominal cuticle, suggesting that its presence on egg surface may be due to passive contamination. Next, we tested the hypothesis that the secretion serves as a queen signal. Indeed queens, but not worker glandular secretion were attractive to workers.
KW - Caste-specificity
KW - Dufour's gland
KW - Honeybee, queen-signal
KW - Retinue behavior
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0036860730&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1051/apido:2002035
DO - 10.1051/apido:2002035
M3 - ???researchoutput.researchoutputtypes.contributiontojournal.systematicreview???
AN - SCOPUS:0036860730
SN - 0044-8435
VL - 33
SP - 525
EP - 537
JO - Apidologie
JF - Apidologie
IS - 6
ER -