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Chemical Senses Advance Access published online on May 25, 2005
Chemical Senses, doi:10.1093/chemse/bji040
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oupjournals.org
Accepted April 18, 2005

Article

Nestmate Recognition Cues in the Honey Bee: Differential Importance of Cuticular Alkanes and Alkenes

Francesca R. Dani 1*, Graeme R. Jones 2, Silvia Corsi 3, Richard Beard 2, Duccio Pradella 3, and Stefano Turillazzi 3

1 Dipartimento di Biologia Animale e Genetica dell'Università di Firenze, via Romana 17, 50125-Firenze, Italy; Centro Interdipartimentale di Spettrometria di Massa dell'Università di Firenze, Viale G. Pieraccini 6, 50139-Firenze, Italy
2 Chemical Ecology Group, School of Chemistry and Physics Lennard-Jones Laboratories, Keele University, Staffordshire ST5 5BG, UK
3 Dipartimento di Biologia Animale e Genetica dell'Università di Firenze, via Romana 17, 50125-Firenze, Italy

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Francesca R. Dani, E-mail: frdani{at}dbag.unifi.it


  Abstract

In social insects, recognition of nestmates from aliens is based on olfactory cues, and many studies have demonstrated that such cues are contained within the lipid layer covering the insect cuticle. These lipids are usually a complex mixture of tens of compounds in which aliphatic hydrocarbons are generally the major components. The experiments described here tested whether artificial changes in the cuticular profile through supplementation of naturally occurring alkanes and alkenes in honeybees affect the behaviour of nestmate guards. Compounds were applied to live foragers in microgram quantities and the bees returned to their hive entrance where the behaviour of the guard bees was observed. In this fashion we compared the effect of single alkenes with that of single alkanes; the effect of mixtures of alkenes versus that of mixtures of alkanes and the whole alkane fraction separated from the cuticular lipids versus the alkene fraction. With only one exception (the comparison between n-C19 and (Z)9-C19), in all the experiments bees treated with alkenes were attacked more intensively than bees treated with alkanes. This leads us to conclude that modification of the natural chemical profile with the two different classes of compounds has a different effect on acceptance and suggests that this may correspond to a differential importance in the recognition signature.

Keywords: cuticular hydrocarbons; cuticular lipids; honeybees; nestmate recognition.
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