Reproductivephysiologymediateshoneybee(Apis

mellifera)workerresponsestosocialcues

ENVS*2210
Dylan Cooper 0803752
Background

Within honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies, there is a

reproductive division of labour in which the queen lays the eggs and

the workers (females) remain sterile and rear the brood laid by the

queens. Under normal circumstances, worker bee reproduction is

limited to about 0.1% of male eggs produced within the hive. The rest

is from a single reproductive queen. Under queenless and broodless

circumstances, a portion of worker bees will activate their ovaries and

lay haploid eggs, which will develop into males. The ability of the

worker bees to activate their ovaries and lay eggs depends on the size

of the ovaries. Workers with larger ovaries are more likely to reproduce

under queenless conditions.

In typical honey bee colonies, the queen will produce

pheromones called queen mandibular pheromone (QMP), in order to

inhibit the reproduction of worker bees. This pheromone can inhibit

activation of worker bee ovaries and keep them sterile. QMP mimics

the effects of a live queen and stimulates a retinue response, where

workers are attracted to the queen. This retinue response ensures that

the workers promote the queens reproduction and limit their own

reproduction.

If the queen is lost, workers can rear a new queen from one of

her young larval offspring, or they can activate their own ovaries and

initiate egg-laying. Though QMP inhibits queen rearing, there are other
chemicals that can allow the workers to feed the queen larva rather

than worker larva to develop a new queen. There is significant

variation in worker response to QMP that is negatively correlated to

ovary size. Workers with small ovaries are more likely to respond to the

pheromone and not reproduce while workers with large ovaries are

more likely to ignore this pheromone and activate their ovaries.

Objectives

These ideas have been presented about honey bee colonies

before but were done in labs under controlled conditions. So this

journal looked at these relationships in real colonies under normal

circumstances. The idea behind this study was to conduct experiments

using small colonies of bees to examine the association between

worker ovary size and retinue response. They also examined whether

worker ovary size was associated with reproducing new queens when

the queen was lost. Finally, they further examined the association

between ovary size and the response to queen pheromone.

Discussion and Analysis

Through experimentation it was confirmed that ovary size is

negatively associated with retinue response and new queen rearing.

This study was done using a QMP strip and found that bees that were

the most attracted to the strip had small ovaries, while the bees with
larger ovaries remained less interested. This suggests that honey bee

worker reproduction physiology is associated with behaviours that

facilitate queen reproduction and inhibit worker reproduction.

This study also confirmed that there is a significant positive

correlation between ovary size and ovary activation. They removed the

queen from colonies and after 2 weeks, ovary activation was much

higher in bees with larger ovaries than small.

Finally they confirmed that the increase in ovary size had a

negative association with retinue response. The authors surgically

increased the ovary size of worker bees by injecting fresh ovarian

tissue into their abdomens and 5 days after the surgery they evaluated

their retinue response. The workers with the injections were

significantly less responsive to QMP.

With these results, this study proves that even in more natural

settings the ideas presented above held true. They were however,

unsure whether the workers with large ovaries were not attracted to

the pheromones or whether they were simply ignoring the queen. This

study also does not explain the mechanism by which ovaries influence

worker interactions with the queen. It is postulated that these

interactions are influenced by gene expression differences in

subregions of the brain. Regardless, the observed responses by the

worker bees to social cues are negatively correlated with ovary size.

This study proved that variation in honey bee worker reproductive

physiology is associated with differences in social behavior within the

colony.

Reflection

This article was well done and was clear and to the point. The

hypotheses were clearly defined in the intro along with great

background knowledge introducing the topic of the article. The

procedure was well described and introduced new ideas very well.

They were however unable to explain why the bees reacted the way

they did to the queens pheromones but that wasnt the point of the

study. Overall, the study was well structured that addressed each point

and clearly stated their findings.

References

Galbraith, David A., Ying Wang, Gro V. Amdam, Robert E. Page, and Christina M.
Grozinger. "Reproductive Physiology Mediates Honey Bee (Apis Mellifera) Worker
Responses to Social Cues." Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Behav Ecol Sociobiol
69.9 (2015): 1511-518.