ArticleScientific reports2016
Starving honey bee (Apis mellifera) larvae signal pheromonally to worker bees.
Article in Scientific reports, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers.
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30 citing papers in PubMed.
- Expression Characteristics of Odorant Receptor GeneInsects · 2026Article
- Never underestimate honeybees: Their exceptionally diverse adaptive strategies.Journal of advanced research · 2026Review
- Protein craving links larval signals to food provisioning in honey bees.Science advances · 2026Article
- Age and QMP exposure affect the nutritional preferences of cagedApidologie · 2026Article
- Article
- Role specialization and reproductive division of labour at the origin of eusociality.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- E-B-ocimene and brood cannibalism: Interplay between a honey bee larval pheromone and brood regulation in summer dearth colonies.PloS one · 2025Article
- Coevolution of larval signalling and worker response can trigger developmental caste determination in social insects.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Honey bee (Apis mellifera) nurse bee visitation of worker and drone larvae increases Varroa destructor mite cell invasion.Journal of insect science (Online) · 2024Article
- Indirect exposure to insect growth disruptors affects honey bee (Apis mellifera) reproductive behaviors and ovarian protein expression.PloS one · 2023Article
- Detailed chemical analysis of honey bee (Apis mellifera) worker brood volatile profile from egg to emergence.PloS one · 2023Article
- Honey bee retinue workers respond similarly to queens despite seasonal differences in Queen Mandibular Pheromone (QMP) signaling.PloS one · 2023Article
- The involvement of a floral scent in plant-honeybee interaction.Die Naturwissenschaften · 2022Article
- Variation in the reproductive quality of honey bee males affects their age of flight attempt.PeerJ · 2022Article
- Functional response of the hypopharyngeal glands to a social parasitism challenge in Southern African honey bee subspecies.Parasitology research · 2022Article
- Honey Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Nursing Responses to Cuticular Cues Emanating from Short-term Changes in Larval Rearing Environment.Journal of insect science (Online) · 2021Article
- Female developmental environment delays development of male honeybee (Apis mellifera).BMC genomics · 2021Article
- Care-giver identity impacts offspring development and performance in an annually social bumble bee.BMC ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Olfactory coding in honeybees.Cell and tissue research · 2021Review
- A novel terpene synthase controls differences in anti-aphrodisiac pheromone production between closely related Heliconius butterflies.PLoS biology · 2021Article
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6 authors.
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Abstract
Cooperative brood care is diagnostic of animal societies. This is particularly true for the advanced social insects, and the honey bee is the best understood of the insect societies. A brood pheromone signaling the presence of larvae in a bee colony has been characterised and well studied, but here we explored whether honey bee larvae actively signal their food needs pheromonally to workers. We show that starving honey bee larvae signal to workers via increased production of the volatile pheromone E-β-ocimene. Analysis of volatile pheromones produced by food-deprived and fed larvae with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry showed that starving larvae produced more E-β-ocimene. Behavioural analyses showed that adding E-β-ocimene to empty cells increased the number of worker visits to those cells, and similarly adding E-β-ocimene to larvae increased worker visitation rate to the larvae. RNA-seq and qRT-PCR analysis identified 3 genes in the E-β-ocimene biosynthetic pathway that were upregulated in larvae following 30 minutes of starvation, and these genes also upregulated in 2-day old larvae compared to 4-day old larvae (2-day old larvae produce the most E-β-ocimene). This identifies a pheromonal mechanism by which brood can beg for food from workers to influence the allocation of resources within the colony.
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