Department of Environmental, Population, and Organismic Biology, The University of Colorado, 80309-0334, Boulder, Colorado.
J Chem Ecol. 1992 Sep;18(9):1633-40. doi: 10.1007/BF00993235.
Previous work has shown that queen honeybees,Apis mellifera, produce waxy esters composed of 8-14 carbon acids and 6-14 carbon alcohols in their feces. We tested these esters for effects on nestmate recognition; 11 of the 12 esters tested significantly modified the recognition characteristics of worker honeybees. Pairwise tests showed that workers can discriminate between at least some pairs of queen esters and that workers can discriminate between a queen ester and hexadecane (another known nestmate recognition cue). These results suggest that a queen may use the esters to enable workers to recognize her or to scent-mark her colony.
先前的研究表明，蜂王（Apis mellifera）会在粪便中产生由 8-14 个碳的酸和 6-14 个碳的醇组成的蜡酯。我们测试了这些酯对同巢识别的影响；在测试的 12 种酯中，有 11 种显著改变了工蜂的识别特性。成对测试表明，工蜂可以区分至少一些蜂王酯，并且可以区分蜂王酯和十六烷（另一种已知的同巢识别线索）。这些结果表明，蜂王可能会利用这些酯来使工蜂识别她或为她的蜂巢标记气味。
