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How do honeybee workers respond when their queen no longer produces queen substance?
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Animal social behavior
Herd of gnu (wildebeests) in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania.
When a honeybee queen stops producing queen substanceāa pheromone secreted from her mandibular glandsāthe colony's social structure undergoes significant changes because this substance normally inhibits worker behavior and physiology.12
When the queen disappears, dies, or becomes too weak to produce sufficient amounts of this pheromone, the workers respond in the following ways:
- Rearing new queens: The absence of the inhibitory odor signals the workers to immediately begin rearing new queens from young [larvae]. These larvae are fed royal jelly and housed in enlarged queen cells to facilitate their development.234
- Physiological changes: The lack of queen substance removes the suppression of the workers' ovaries, which can lead to the development of functional ovaries in workers.123
- Supersedure: If a queen is failing in her egg-laying efficiency, workers may rear a "supersedure" queen to replace her without the colony swarming.5
Essentially, the queen substance acts as a chemical regulator that maintains the colony's social organization; its absence triggers an immediate biological response to ensure the colony's continuity.13