INRA, UMR 406, Abeilles et Environnement, Laboratoire Biologie et Protection de l'Abeille, Avignon, France.
PLoS One. 2010 Oct 21;5(10):e13531. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0013531.
In honey bee colony, the brood is able to manipulate and chemically control the workers in order to sustain their own development. A brood ester pheromone produced primarily by old larvae (4 and 5 days old larvae) was first identified as acting as a contact pheromone with specific effects on nurses in the colony. More recently a new volatile brood pheromone has been identified: E-β-ocimene, which partially inhibits ovary development in workers.
Our analysis of E-β-ocimene production revealed that young brood (newly hatched to 3 days old) produce the highest quantity of E-β-ocimene relative to their body weight. By testing the potential action of this molecule as a non-specific larval signal, due to its high volatility in the colony, we demonstrated that in the presence of E-β-ocimene nest workers start to forage earlier in life, as seen in the presence of real brood.
CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: In this way, young larvae are able to assign precedence to the task of foraging by workers in order to increase food stores for their own development. Thus, in the complexity of honey bee chemical communication, E-β-ocimene, a pheromone of young larvae, provides the brood with the means to express their nutritional needs to the workers.
在蜜蜂群体中，幼虫能够操纵和化学控制工蜂，以维持自身的发育。一种主要由老幼虫（4 日龄和 5 日龄幼虫）产生的幼虫信息素被首次鉴定为具有接触信息素的作用，对群体中的护理蜂具有特定的影响。最近，一种新的挥发性幼虫信息素已被鉴定：E-β-ocimene，它部分抑制工蜂的卵巢发育。
我们对 E-β-ocimene 产生的分析表明，与体重相比，年轻幼虫（刚孵化至 3 日龄）产生的 E-β-ocimene 数量最多。通过测试这种分子作为非特异性幼虫信号的潜在作用，由于其在群体中的高挥发性，我们证明在 E-β-ocimene 的存在下，巢中的工蜂会更早地开始觅食，就像在有真正幼虫存在的情况下一样。
结论/意义：通过这种方式，年幼的幼虫能够优先安排工蜂的觅食任务，以增加其自身发育所需的食物储备。因此，在蜜蜂复杂的化学通讯中，E-β-ocimene，一种幼虫信息素，为幼虫提供了向工蜂表达其营养需求的手段。
