Selection on worker honeybee responses to queen pheromone ( Apis mellifera L.)

As social insects, honey bees (Apis mellifera) rely on the coordinated performance of various behaviors to ensure that the needs of the colony are met. One of the most critical of these behaviors is the feeding and care of egg laying honey bee queens by non-fecund female worker attendants. These behaviors are crucial to honey bee reproduction and are known to be elicited by the queen’s pheromone blend. The degree to which workers respond to this blend can vary depending on their physiological status, but little is known regarding the impacts of developmental exposure to agrochemicals on this behavior. This work investigated how exposing workers during larval development to chronic sublethal doses of insect growth disruptors affected their development time, weight, longevity, and queen pheromone responsiveness as adult worker honey bees. Exposure to the juvenile hormone analog pyriproxyfen consistently shortened the duration of pupation, and pyriproxyfen and diflubenzuron inconsistently reduced the survivorship of adult bees. Finally, pyriproxyfen and methoxyfenozide treated bees were found to be less responsive to queen pheromone relative to other treatment groups. Here, we describe these results and discuss their possible physiological underpinnings as well as their potential impacts on honey bee reproduction and colony performance.

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AGE-DEPENDENT CONDITIONED RESPONSES TO QUEEN PHEROMONE IN APIS MELLIFERA CARNICA POLLM. WORKERS FROM QUEENLESS COLONY TREATED WITH SYNTHETIC QUEEN MANDIBULAR PHEROMONE

Acta Zoologica Lituanica ◽

10.1080/13921657.2007.10512852 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 17 (4) ◽

pp. 341-345 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Laima Blažytė-Čereškienė ◽

Gražina Vatkevičienė ◽

Violeta Apšegaitė

Keyword(s):

Apis Mellifera ◽

Queen Pheromone ◽

Queen Mandibular Pheromone ◽

Apis Mellifera Carnica ◽

Age Dependent ◽

Conditioned Responses

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Primer effects of the honeybee, Apis mellifera, queen pheromone 9-ODA on drones

Animal Behaviour ◽

10.1016/j.anbehav.2017.03.023 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 127 ◽

pp. 271-279 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Gabriel Villar ◽

Christina M. Grozinger

Keyword(s):

Apis Mellifera ◽

Queen Pheromone

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Differentiation Processes of the Ocellar Retina of the Honeybee (Apis Mellifera L.)

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100159692 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 48 (3) ◽

pp. 430-431

Author(s):

Maria Anna Pabst

Keyword(s):

Apis Mellifera ◽

Distal Part ◽

Cell Layer ◽

Single Layer ◽

Photoreceptor Cells ◽

Distal Segment ◽

Compound Eyes ◽

Thin Sections ◽

Ultrastructural Studies ◽

Adult Worker

In addition to the compound eyes, honeybees have three dorsal ocelli on the vertex of the head. Each ocellus has about 800 elongated photoreceptor cells. They are paired and the distal segment of each pair bears densely packed microvilli forming together a platelike fused rhabdom. Beneath a common cuticular lens a single layer of corneagenous cells is present.Ultrastructural studies were made of the retina of praepupae, different pupal stages and adult worker bees by thin sections and freeze-etch preparations. In praepupae the ocellar anlage consists of a conical group of epidermal cells that differentiate to photoreceptor cells, glial cells and corneagenous cells. Some photoreceptor cells are already paired and show disarrayed microvilli with circularly ordered filaments inside. In ocelli of 2-day-old pupae, when a retinogenous and a lentinogenous cell layer can be clearly distinguished, cell membranes of the distal part of two photoreceptor cells begin to interdigitate with each other and so start to form the definitive microvilli. At the beginning the microvilli often occupy the whole width of the developing rhabdom (Fig. 1).

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