The waggle dance of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) foragers communicates to nest mates the location of a profitable food source. We used solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry to show that waggle-dancing bees produce and release two alkanes, tricosane and pentacosane, and two alkenes, Z-(9)-tricosene and Z-(9)-pentacosene, onto their abdomens and into the air. Nondancing foragers returning from the same food source produce these substances in only minute quantities. Injection of the scent significantly affects worker behavior by increasing the number of bees that exit the hive. The results of this study suggest that these compounds are semiochemicals involved in worker recruitment. By showing that honey bee waggle dancers produce and release behaviorally active chemicals, this study reveals a new dimension in the organization of honey bee foraging.
Antibodies were raised in rabbits to synaptic vesicles purified to homogeneity from the electric organ of Narcine brasiliensis, a marine electric ray. These antibodies were shown by indirect immunofluorescence techniques to bind to a wide variety of nerve terminals in the mammalian nervous system, both peripheral and central . The shared antigenic determinants are found in cholinergic terminals, including the neuromuscular junction, sympathetic ganglionic and parasympathetic postganglionic terminals, and in those synaptic areas of the hippocampus and cerebellum that stain with acetylcholinesterase . They are also found in some noncholinergic regions, including adrenergic sympathetic postganglionic terminals, the peptidergic terminals in the posterior pituitary, and adrenal chromaffin cells. They are, however, not found in many noncholinergic synapse-rich regions. Such regions include the molecular layer of the cerebellum and those laminae of the dentate gyrus that receive hippocampal associational and commissural input. We conclude that one or more of the relatively small number of antigenic determinants in pure electric fish synaptic vesicles have been conserved during evolution, and are found in some but not all nerve terminals of the mammalian nervous system . The pattern of antibody binding in the central nervous system suggests unexpected biochemical similarities between nerve terminals heretofore regarded as unrelated .
-Mated European honey bee (Apis mellifera) queens were introduced into Africanized and European colonies to determine if acceptance rates differed. Prior to introduction, volatile compounds emitted by queens were collected. More queens were accepted by European colonies compared with Africanized. The highest supersedure rate occurred in Africanized colonies during summer introductions. Queen acceptance did not differ between European and Africanized colonies during spring or fall introductions. E-ß-ocimene was the only compound consistently detected in queens prior to their introduction, and was present in lower amounts in queens that were rejected within the first week of their introduction. The best time to introduce European queens appears to be in the fall when overall rejection rates are the lowest.honeybee queen / Africanized bee / pheromone / E-ß-ocimene / queen acceptance / Apis mellifera
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.