Queen mandibular pheromone
The chemical signal by which a queen's presence and condition are known throughout a colony.
Definition
Produced by the queen's mandibular glands and spread through the colony by workers grooming her and passing it on in food exchange. It suppresses worker ovary development, inhibits the building of new queen cells, and attracts a retinue. When it declines — because the queen is failing, has died, or the colony has grown too large for it to circulate — workers begin building queen cells.
Where the word gets used loosely
The queen is routinely described as controlling the colony through pheromone. It is better read the other way round: the signal is information the workers act on, and it is the workers who decide to supersede her.
See also
Other bees terms
Sources
Sources
- The Biology of the Honey Bee — Harvard University Press (1987) · Textbook
- The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild — Princeton University Press (2019) · Monograph
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