Brood pheremones

[mintmoth]

I was told, and have also read, that it is partly brood pheremones that prevent workers becoming egg layers, and that if you have a Q- colony with egg-laying workers, by giving them open worker brood (sometimes several times) the workers may/will revert to normal.

Taking that on board, does this mean then that drone brood and worker brood produce different pheremones, since the ELW's are making drone brood and that doesn't then stop them laying?

I did find one brief, throw-away sentence out there on 'tinterweb that said brood pheremones help nurse bees distinguish between drone and worker brood, but it didn't elaborate, and was a bit of a stand alone sentence.

(And I can't find the site where I read it again )

 

[Hivemaker.]

(And I can't find the site where I read it again )

Was this it?

Brood pheromones

It's the pheromones from open brood that suppress the laying workers from developing, but some do anyway. It is NOT the queen pheromone as many of the older books suggest.

See page 11 of Wisdom of the hive:

"the queen's pheromones are neither necessary nor sufficient for inhibiting worker's ovaries. Instead, they strongly inhibit the workers from rearing additional queens. It is now clear that the pheromones that provide the proximate stimulus for workers to refrain from laying eggs come mainly from the brood, not from the queen (reviewed in Seeling 1985; see also Willis, Winston, and Slessor 1990)."

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm

 

[REDWOOD]

I think it's more a case of lack of queen pheromones.

 

[mintmoth]

Was this it?



http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm

No, it was a science oriented paper, and I got a bit bogged down with brood ester pheremone and E-beta-ocimene and glazed over after a while...

 

[mintmoth]

Found it...
http://www.honeybeesuite.com/what-is-open-brood-pheromone/

Then I clicked on the Maisonnasse, Alban et al. link, and that's when I started to get out of my depth.

 

[mintmoth]

The bit about drone and worker larvae having different pheremones was from wiki, so maybe not totally trustworthy

"Another pheromone is responsible for preventing worker bees from bearing offspring in a colony that still has developing young. Both larvae and pupae emit a "brood recognition" pheromone. This inhibits ovarian development in worker bees and helps nurse bees distinguish worker larvae from drone larvae and pupae. This pheromone is a ten-component blend of fatty-acid esters, which also modulates adult caste ratios and foraging ontogeny dependent on its concentration."

 

[Finman]

K

No, it was a science oriented paper, and I got a bit bogged down with brood ester pheremone and E-beta-ocimene and glazed over after a while...

Bush is not a scientist. He has not even research education. He has his own view from natural beekeeping and he does not mind about information which are against his opinions.

University of Sheffield found out first the secret of worker layers about 15 y ago.

Quest in is about "hopelessly queenless hive" and hives no queen or young brood from where colony may rear a new queen. Sometimes bees try go rear queen from drone larva.

But of course question is not about brood pheromones, because hive has different kind of broodless periods. (swarm and virgin queen, or nuc and mere queen cell)

If hives has n hope to get new queen, ovaries of many workers will swell and they can lay eggs. Layers may be hundreds or even thousands.

When you give a frame of larvae to such hive, they start to rear emergency queens at once. Next day hive has visible queen cells, and hive has no reason to have worker layers.

Even if that knowledge has been in Britain 15 years, beekeepers have not forgotten their fairytales about a worker queen and about shaking bees at distance of 100 yard. In that legend worker was queen will kill all real queens. But I have requeened normally those worker layer hives. I have had them much among mating nucs.

For example I have told several times about Sheffield researches to Beemaster forum, but guys there love more those old legends.

 

[Finman]

The bit about drone and worker larvae having different pheremones was from wiki, so maybe not totally trustworthy

"Another pheromone is responsible for preventing worker bees from bearing offspring in a colony that still has developing young. Both larvae and pupae emit a "brood recognition" pheromone. This inhibits ovarian development in worker bees and helps nurse bees distinguish worker larvae from drone larvae and pupae. This pheromone is a ten-component blend of fatty-acid esters, which also modulates adult caste ratios and foraging ontogeny dependent on its concentration."

This is really too complicated to normal beekeeper.

But it is not a secret that workers make difference between different larvae. The brood cycle process is much more complicated. All worker larvae are fed with royal jelly up to 3 days.

.

 

[mintmoth]

Bush is not a scientist.

I did not intend to imply that he was, Finman, sorry if I gave that impression.
I do believe however, that these guys are

Alban Maisonnasse , Jean-Christophe Lenoir, Dominique Beslay, Didier Crauser, Yves Le Conte

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0013531

 

[mintmoth]

This is really too complicated to normal beekeeper.

Doesn't stop me from being curious about the answer though

 

[mintmoth]

But it is not a secret that workers make difference between different larvae. The brood cycle process is much more complicated. All worker larvae are fed with royal jelly up to 3 days.

But after that, drone and worker are fed slightly differently, are they not? How do the nurse bees know?

 

[Finman]

I
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0013531

This research has nothing to do with worker layer. It only tells that researchers have identified the chemical which quides workers' job.



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