Nagaraja Narayanappa, Brockmann Axel
UGC Academic Staff College, Bangalore University, Central College Campus, Bangalore, 560 001, India.
J Chem Ecol. 2009 Jun;35(6):653-5. doi: 10.1007/s10886-009-9648-y. Epub 2009 Jun 16.
The queen mandibular gland component (2E)-9-oxodecenoic acid (9-ODA) has been suggested to function as the major sex pheromone component in all honey bee species. In contrast to this hypothesis, chemical analyses showed that in the Asian dwarf honey bee species, Apis florea, a different decenoic acid, (2E)-10-hydroxydecenoic acid (10-HDA), is the major component in the mandibular gland secretion. We show here that A. florea drones are attracted to 9-ODA as well as to 10-HDA. However, 10-HDA attracted higher numbers of drones at lower dosages than 9-ODA, and also was more attractive when directly compared to 9-ODA in a dual attraction experiment. We conclude that 10-HDA has to be viewed as the major sex pheromone in A. florea. The result that both pheromone components are capable of attracting drones when presented alone was unexpected with regard to existing sex pheromone attraction experiments in honey bees.
蜂王下颌腺成分（2E）-9-氧代癸烯酸（9-ODA）被认为是所有蜜蜂物种中的主要性信息素成分。与这一假设相反，化学分析表明，在亚洲矮蜂物种——小蜜蜂（Apis florea）中，一种不同的癸烯酸，即（2E）-10-羟基癸烯酸（10-HDA），是下颌腺分泌物中的主要成分。我们在此表明，小蜜蜂雄蜂会被9-ODA以及10-HDA吸引。然而，在较低剂量下，10-HDA比9-ODA吸引了更多的雄蜂，并且在双吸引实验中与9-ODA直接比较时，10-HDA也更具吸引力。我们得出结论，10-HDA必须被视为小蜜蜂中的主要性信息素。就蜜蜂现有的性信息素吸引实验而言，两种信息素成分单独呈现时都能够吸引雄蜂这一结果是出乎意料的。
