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How does queen substance affect worker honeybees in a colony?

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Animals communicate by sending and receiving signals. For example, a mother dingo (Canis lupus dingo) can communicate certain types of information to her pups by using tactile signals conveyed through grooming. — Animal communication Animals communicate by sending and receiving signals. For example, a mother dingo (*Canis lupus dingo*) can communicate certain types of information to her pups by using tactile signals conveyed through grooming.

In a honeybee colony, queen substance is a vital pheromone secreted by the queen’s mandibular glands that acts as a chemical messenger to maintain social order. It affects worker honeybees in several key ways:123

Physiological Inhibition: The substance is consumed by workers and distributed throughout the colony via food sharing. Its presence disrupts the development of the workers' ovaries, effectively preventing them from reproducing.2341
Behavioral Regulation: The pheromone modifies worker behavior by inhibiting the construction of new queen cells. As long as the substance is present, it signals that the queen is healthy, suppressing the workers' urge to rear a replacement.132
Colony Stability: If the queen is lost or her production of the substance declines, the workers detect the absence of this chemical signal. This triggers an immediate behavioral shift, leading them to build queen cells and feed young larvae with royal jelly to produce a new queen.23