Alarm pheromone

Definition

Isopentyl acetate, which smells of bananas, is released when a bee stings and marks the target for further attention. This is why a single sting frequently becomes several, why smoke is used to mask it, and why washing a sting site and moving away is more effective than staying still.

Guide records that discuss this

• How bees communicate by smellA honey bee colony is held together chemically. More than a dozen pheromones are known, they overlap in function, and most of what a bee does in a day is a response to one of them rather than to anything it has seen.

Question records that discuss this

• Do bees communicate with pheromones?Extensively, and it is the channel that actually holds a colony together. More than a dozen pheromones are known. Queen mandibular pheromone suppresses worker reproduction and queen rearing; brood pheromone shifts nursing and foraging effort; alarm pheromone marks a target and lowers the threshold for stinging.
• How do bees warn each other of danger?Chemically, mostly. When a worker stings, the sting apparatus releases a blend whose most abundant component smells strongly of bananas. It marks the target and lowers the threshold at which nearby bees will attack, which is why one sting is often followed by more in the same place.