Posted on: 02 March, 2017

Author: Alexander P

The pheromone scent trails of some species are more effective than honeybee dances in assembling recruits and in addition can provide information on the vertical component (Lindauer and Kerr, 1958). ... The pheromone scent trails of some species are more effective than honeybee dances in assembling recruits and in addition can provide information on the vertical component (Lindauer and Kerr, 1958). However the pheromone scent trail alone of other species appears to be insufficient to elicit trail-following behaviour of recruits who need to be guided by the scout bee to the food on their initial trip, although thereafter they are able to follow the trail on their own (Cruz-Landim and Rodriquez, 1967). The trail pheromone is secreted by the mandibular glands of bees that have reached 40-50 days old; the mandibular glands of younger bees are insufciently developed (Cruz-Landirn and Ferreira 1968). Individuals tend to respond to the trail of their own species only but limited interspecic trail following does occur. Thus T. xanthotricha can follow trails of T. positca but not vice versa (Kerr et al. , 1963); probably these two species have only minor differences in chemical components of the trail pheromone. There are many benefits to human pheromones. (E)-and (Z)-citral are the dominant pheromone components of the mandibular gland secretion of T. subterranea (Blum et al., 1970). Bees ying toward a food source examined small wooden blocks treated with citral that had been placed en route, and landed near those that had been placed at the food source itself. However, when the citral-treated blocks were placed inside a T. subterranea nest they were immediately attacked; the agitated workers made no attempt to leave the nest. Hence, the same chemical releases both trail following and alarm, and the mandibular gland secretion possibly serves both functions.The mandibular gland secretion of T. spinipes which produces well-dened trails (Kerr et al., 1963) contains 2—heptanol as the major volatile component, and 2-nonanol, 2-tridecanol, octyl octanoate and octyl decanoate as minor components (Kerr et al., 1981); 2-heptanol alone was successfully used to produce articial trails followed by T. spinipes workers. Pheromone scent marking of unproductive food sources Nunez (1967) produced evidence that honeybees may mark unproductive food sources with scent. He trained bees to stand on the bottom rims of 12 vertical glass outer tubes while collecting sugar syrup from a capillary tube inside each. When some of the capillary tubes contained no sugar syrup bees continued to alight on the outer tubes, but only briey. When the positions of the outer tubes were exchanged so that outer tubes which had previously housed capillary tubes with syrup now housed empty tubes, they were still subjected to prolonged visits; and the bees still landed only momentarily on outer tubes which had enclosed empty capillary tubes, although they now enclosed full ones with pheromones.Driving a current of air over the ends of the outer tubes in an effort to disperse any odour present resulted in both types of outer tube receiving prolonged visits and very few transient visits, which suggested that it was a repellent odour deposited at an unproductive food source which discouraged foragers rather than an attractive odour at the productive food source which encouraged them. Perhaps, however, the current of air removed the more volatile repellent pheromone but not a less volatile attractive one. Article Tags: Pheromone Scent Marking, Mandibular Gland Secretion, Pheromone Scent, Scent Marking, Mandibular Gland, Gland Secretion, Food Source, Unproductive Food, Outer Tubes, Capillary Tubes Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com Alexander P is a blogger from Los Angeles who studies pheromones.