SUPPRESSION OF QUEEN REARING IN EUROPEAN AND AFRICANIZED HONEY-BEES APIS-MELLIFERA L BY SYNTHETIC QUEEN MANDIBULAR GLAND PHEROMONE

Queen rearing is suppressed in honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) by phero mones, particularly the queen's mandibular gland pheromone. In this st udy we compared this pheromonally-based inhibition between temperate a nd tropically-evolved honey bees. Colonies of European and Africanized bees were exposed to synthetic queen mandibular gland pheromone (QMP) for ten days following removal of resident queens, and their queen re aring responses were examined. Queen rearing was suppressed similarly in both European and Africanized honey bees with the addition of synth etic QMP, indicating that QMP acts on workers of both races in a compa rable fashion. QMP completely suppressed queen cell production for two days, but by day six, cells containing queen larvae were present in a ll treated colonies, indicating that other signals play a role in the suppression of queen rearing. In queenless control colonies not treate d with QMP, Africanized bees reared 30% fewer queens than Europeans, p ossibly due to racial differences in response to Feedback from develop ing queens and/or their cells, Queen development rate was faster in Af ricanized colonies, or they selected older larvae to initiate cells, a s only 1% of queen cells were unsealed after 10 days compared with 12% unsealed cells in European colonies.