Absence Of Queen Research Articles

Decoding the Behavior of a Queenless Colony Using Sound Signals.

Honeybees are reported to be the most vital pollinators of agricultural and horticultural crops. However, their widespread decline has raised great attention to the need to monitor their activity in order to identify the causes and implement countermeasures. The recording and analysis of signals used by honeybees for their communication in their hive can be a very helpful tool to the beekeepers for the remote control of the hives. Thus, in the present study, we used a set of sound recording data taken inside the hives to automatically detect the sounds of the bees over a certain period, to distinguish between queenright and queenless states, and to find the gradual changes in the queenless state. Unlike what was commonly believed, noticeable changes in the sound signals of all experimental colonies were observed just one hour after the queens' removal from the hive, while the sound signals were intensified over a period of 5 h, after which the transmitted signal stabilized to the equivalent of a queenless state. The colonies seemed to return to their normal sounds 9-10 days after the reintroduction of the queens in the hives. Our study concluded that timely intervention of the queen's absence combined with the immediate intervention of the beekeeper may be a determining factor in mitigating the adverse effects that occur from the queen's loss.

Worker Reproduction in the Highly Polygynous Ant Crematogaster pygmaea Forel, 1904 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

In most ant species, workers have retained functional ovaries, allowing them to potentially lay viable unfertilized eggs that develop into males. Mechanisms (ex.: queen and/or worker policing) have nevertheless evolved to control worker reproduction when the queen is present. In many species with a high degree of polygyny, especially in tramp species, complete sterility of workers has evolved, presumably to “trap” them within their “worker phenotype”. Our study showed for the first time that in the highly polygynous and polydomous ant Crematogaster pygmaea, workers retained the full capacity to produce reproductive eggs in queenless colonies, with at least some of them developing in adult males. We provide evidence that worker-produced males are reproductively functional. Although most queenless colonies produced eggs, few larvae developed into pupae and adult males. We conclude that workers strongly police the worker-produced offspring, even in the queen's absence. Probable high relatedness between queens of C. pygmaea colonies and strong genetic proximity between brood and workers could force the workers in their helper, non-reproductive function even if they keep the ability to reproduce. Our observations indicate that the production of adult males and gynes in C. pygmaea is controlled by seasonal factors related to the rainy season.

Possible Role of Geographical Location and Queen Absence on Damage of Small Hive Beetles (Aethina tumida Murray) on Honey Bee Colonies

Possible Role of Geographical Location and Queen Absence on Damage of Small Hive Beetles (Aethina tumida Murray) on Honey Bee Colonies

Origin, behaviour, and genetics of reproductive workers in an invasive ant

BackgroundWorker reproduction has an important influence on the social cohesion and efficiency of social insect colonies, but its role in the success of invasive ants has been neglected. We used observations of 233 captive colonies, laboratory experiments, and genetic analyses to investigate the conditions for worker reproduction in the invasive Anoplolepis gracilipes (yellow crazy ant) and its potential cost on interspecific defence. We determined the prevalence of worker production of males and whether it is triggered by queen absence; whether physogastric workers with enlarged abdomens are more likely to be reproductive, how normal workers and physogastric workers compare in their contributions to foraging and defence; and whether worker-produced males and males that could have been queen- or worker-produced differ in their size and heterozygosity.ResultsSixty-six of our 233 captive colonies produced males, and in 25 of these, some males could only have been produced by workers. Colonies with more workers were more likely to produce males, especially for queenless colonies. The average number of days between the first appearance of eggs and adult males in our colonies was 54.1 ± 10.2 (mean ± SD, n = 20). In our laboratory experiment, queen removal triggered an increase in the proportion of physogastric workers. Physogastric workers were more likely to have yolky oocytes (37–54.9%) than normal workers (2–25.6%), which is an indicator of fertile or trophic egg production. Physogastric workers were less aggressive during interspecific aggression tests and foraged less than normal workers. The head width and wing length of worker-produced males were on average 4.0 and 4.3% greater respectively than those of males of undetermined source. Our microsatellite DNA analyses indicate that 5.5% of worker-produced males and 14.3% of males of undetermined source were heterozygous, which suggests the presence of diploid males and/or genetic mosaics in A. gracilipes.ConclusionsOur experimental work provides crucial information on worker reproduction in A. gracilipes and its potential cost to colony defence. The ability of A. gracilipes workers to produce males in the absence of queens may also contribute to its success as an invasive species if intranidal mating can take place between virgin queens and worker-produced males.

Queen loss changes behavior and increases longevity in a stingless bee

The death of the queen can lead to behavioral changes in workers of eusocial bees that alter their longevity. Here, we investigated the behavior and longevity of workers in colonies of the neotropical stingless bee Scaptotrigona aff. postica in the absence of a mated queen. Eight colonies, four being queenright, and four with their physogastric queens removed (queenless), were used in experiments. Emerging workers were marked with different colors to obtain age cohorts. We observed external foraging activity, age of workers involved in cell construction and foraging, and worker longevity in all colonies for 100 days. Over time, queenless colonies presented a greater reduction in external activity than queenright colonies; older workers were more frequently observed participating in cell construction and foraging compared with queenright colonies, and worker lifespan in queenless colonies was about a third longer than that observed in queenright colonies. Our study demonstrates that orphaned workers of this species substantially alter their behavior, causing an increase in their overall longevity and workers starting to lay haploid eggs, allowing some direct reproduction by workers in the absence of a queen. For eusocial species, the loss of the reproductive individual is a critical period for colony survival. Our study shows, for the first time, how workers in a neotropical stingless bee species adapt their behavior during periods without a queen. We show that the longevity of workers of Scaptotrigona aff. postica from orphaned colonies on average increased by 33% compared with regular colonies. We also show that many foragers from orphaned colonies spend more time inside the nest building brood cells rather than participating in more risky foraging behaviors. Therefore, workers alter their behavior in the absence of an egg-laying queen; these changes cause a substantial increase of longevity of the labor force (i.e., workers), and consequently, a possibility that the nest survives until a new mated queen resumes oviposition. In case a new queen does not appear in the colony, males produced by egg-laying workers (which gain a direct fitness through direct reproduction) may spread the colonial genome, by mating with queens from other colonies.

Photographic Subjects: Monarchy and Visual Culture in Colonial Indonesia by Susie Protschky

Reviewed by: Photographic Subjects: Monarchy and Visual Culture in Colonial Indonesia by Susie Protschky Arnout van der Meer (bio) Susie Protschky. Photographic Subjects: Monarchy and Visual Culture in Colonial Indonesia. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019. 244 pp. Most scholars of the late-colonial era in Indonesian history will be familiar with the peculiar omnipresence of the Dutch Queen Wilhelmina (r. 1898–1948). Her name is forever associated with the announcement of the "Ethical Policy" in 1901, with spectacles organized in her honor, such as Batavia's (Jakarta) extravagant annual fair, and with political resistance, like Suwardi Suryaningrat's attempt to raise money with his infamous anticolonial pamphlet, "If I were a Dutchman," to petition Wilhelmina for greater political liberties. Even in the vernacular press, especially publications sponsored by the colonial authorities, her image was a common feature. For instance, the initial four issues of Bintang Hindia (Star of the Indies)—a richly illustrated biweekly periodical for the educated elite among the colonized—featured Wilhelmina, her husband, and her mother on its covers.1 Through these photographs of the queen, the readers of Bintang Hindia were introduced to their monarch in far-flung Europe. It is therefore surprising that the representation of Wilhelmina, and the Dutch monarchy in general, in colonial Indonesia has received scant attention from scholars. Susie Protschky's latest monograph, Photographic Subjects: Monarchy and Visual Culture in Colonial Indonesia, addresses this lacuna. Photographic Subjects departs from the deceptively straightforward premise that while Queen Wilhelmina was physically absent, she was very much pictorially present in colonial Indonesia. None of the Dutch monarchs ever toured their empire in Asia prior to independence movements there. Among the reasons offered for ruling from afar were practical concerns over temporarily abandoning governance of The Netherlands as well as anxieties over the possible health and safety hazards that accompanied travel in the tropics. Protschky adds to this list an intriguing reason for the queen's absence, namely, the fear that her physical appearance would underwhelm the colonized who were used to pomp and splendor from their own rulers. It was in this particular context that the symbolic representation of a distant sublime sovereign, enabled by the advent of mass photography that coincided with Wilhelmina's reign, proved expedient. Photographs, according to Protschky, "emerged as the most ubiquitous proxy for [Wilhelmina's] absent self in the colonies" (12). In her book, Protschky explores the many ways in which people in the Indies—colonizer and colonized—engaged with these images of the queen, which at times helped to construct a transnational sense of community and belonging as well as reinforcing social and colonial hierarchies. In other words, photographs were an important vector in the communication of power—not only its exercise, but also its contestation. It is through a study of these photographs of the Dutch monarch that Protschky, in a highly original manner, adds to our understanding of the entanglement of Indonesian and Dutch histories. [End Page 125] As the title of Protschky's book indicates, this is not a study about Queen Wilhelmina's, or the Dutch monarchy's, personal connection and interaction with colonial Indonesia. The focus instead is on how subjects—Dutch and Indonesian—in the colonial world engaged with the monarchy through photographs. Protschky therefore examines not only photos of the royals themselves, but primarily pictures of their subjects during royal celebrations in the colony. Through a careful examination of these fascinating images she illustrates how "positions of agency and subjecthood were articulated on these occasions through photography" (208). Protschky's arguments are supported by no fewer than sixty-three (!) photographs, which all hail from archival collections in The Netherlands. Two kinds of photographic sources stand out in this study. First, Protschky draws extensively on family albums, a source rarely used by scholars thus far. Second, she examines photographs preserved in the Royal Collections in The Hague that originally were gifts from Javanese Principalities to the Dutch monarchy as a means to assess how Javanese royalty positioned themselves in relationship to the Dutch monarch. Taken together, this is an invaluable contribution to the existing scholarship, consisting of the work of Karen Strassler and Protschky's earlier work on photography, modernity, and...

Study the effect of pheromones on gene expression in the brain of the honeybee Apis mellifera

This research deals with the effect of pheromones, queen mandibular pheromone one gene expression of brain adult for workers honeybee Apis mellifera, these expressions can explain the response behavior induced by pheromones QMP, the impact of gene expression by affecting the movement of workers A. mellifera in the colony of honeybees in the case of the presence of the Queen. Queen's absence means the lack of workers as a result of the lack of pheromones (QMP) or the presence of a few compared to the presence of the Queen. The behavior of workers is linked to the existence of pheromones released by the Queen.

Sources of intraspecific variation in the collective tempo and synchrony of ant societies.

Populations of independently oscillating agents can sometimes synchronize. In the context of animal societies, conspicuous synchronization of activity is known in some social insects. However, the causes of variation in synchrony within and between species have received little attention. We repeatedly assessed the short-term activity cycle of ant colonies (Temnothorax rugatulus) and monitored the movements of individual workers and queens within nests. We detected persistent differences between colonies in the waveform properties of their collective activity oscillations, with some colonies consistently oscillating much more erratically than others. We further demonstrate that colony crowding reduces the rhythmicity (i.e., the consistent timing) of oscillations. Workers in both erratic and rhythmic colonies spend less time active than completely isolated workers, but workers in erratic colonies oscillate out of phase with one another. We further show that the queen's absence can impair the ability of colonies to synchronize worker activity and that behavioral differences between queens are linked with the waveform properties of their societies.

Brain GABA and glutamate levels in workers of two ant species (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): Interspecific differences and effects of queen presence/absence

Presence of amino acid neurotransmitters gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and glutamate (Glu) in ant brains was reported in very few studies. To learn more about factors influencing GABA and Glu levels in ant brains, we applied high-performance liquid chromatography to measure levels of these compounds in single brains of workers of 2 ant species, Myrmica ruginodis (subfamily Myrmicinae) and Formica polyctena (subfamily Formicinae) taken from queenright/queenless colony fragments and tested in dyadic aggression tests consisting of an encounter with a nestmate, an alien conspecific or a small cricket. Brain glutamate levels were higher than those of GABA in both tested species. Brain GABA levels (in μmol/brain) and GABA : Glu ratio were higher in M. ruginodis (a submissive species) than in F. polyctena (a dominant, aggressive species) in spite of smaller brain weight of M. ruginodis. Brain glutamate levels (in μmol/brain) did not differ between the tested species, which implies that glutamate concentration (in μmol/mg of brain tissue) was higher in M. ruginodis. Queen absence was associated with increased worker brain GABA levels in F. polyctena, but not in M. ruginodis. No significant effects of opponent type were discovered. As GABA agonists enhance friendly social behavior in rodents, we hypothesize that elevated brain GABA levels of orphaned workers of F. polyctena facilitate the adoption of a new queen. This is the first report providing information on GABA and glutamate levels in single ant brains and documenting the effects of queen presence/absence on brain levels of amino acid neurotransmitters in workers of social Hymenoptera.

Worker Honeybee Sterility: A Proteomic Analysis of Suppressed Ovary Activation

Eusocial behavior is extensively studied in the honeybee, Apis mellifera, as it displays an extreme form of altruism. Honeybee workers are generally obligatory sterile in a bee colony headed by a queen, but the inhibition of ovary activation is lifted upon the absence of queen and larvae. Worker bees are then able to develop mature, viable eggs. The detailed repressive physiological mechanisms that are responsible for this remarkable phenomenon are as of yet largely unknown. Physiological studies today mainly focus on the transcriptome, while the proteome stays rather unexplored. Here, we present a quantitative 2-dimensional differential gel electrophoresis comparison between activated and inactivated worker ovaries and brains of reproductive and sterile worker bees, including a spot map of ovaries, containing 197 identified spots. Our findings suggest that suppression of ovary activation might involve a constant interplay between primordial oogenesis and subsequent degradation, which is probably mediated through steroid and neuropeptide hormone signaling. Additionally, the observation of higher viral protein loads in both the brains and ovaries of sterile workers is particularly noteworthy. This data set will be of great value for future research unraveling the physiological mechanisms underlying the altruistic sterility in honeybee workers.

Gender Difference and Tudor Monarchy: The Significance of Queen Mary I

The long absence of queens regnant in England owed little to any principled opposition to female rule. Even in France the fourteenth-century appeal to Salic law owed more to pragmatic politics than to systemic hostility to queens. Although there were no clear-cut barriers to female accession, Mary Tudor, England's first Queen Regnant was undoubtedly more acceptable because she came to the throne a mature woman, with an impeccable sexual reputation. Her accession was also made easier by Henry VIII's extended use of statute law; in turn she eased the path to the throne for the younger and allegedly more disreputable Elizabeth.

Different policing rates of eggs laid by queenright and queenless anarchistic honey-bee workers ( Apis mellifera L.)

Worker-reproduction is rare in queenright honey-bee colonies. When workers do lay eggs, their eggs are normally eaten by other workers presumably because they lack the queen's egg-marking signal. Workers use the absence of this queen signal to enforce the queen's reproductive monopoly by policing any worker-laid eggs. In contrast, in anarchistic colonies, the majority of the males arise from worker-laid eggs. Anarchistic worker-laid eggs escape policing because workers perceive anarchistic eggs as queen-laid. However, in this study, we show that eggs laid by queenless anarchistic workers do not escape policing and have very similar removal rates to worker-laid eggs from queenless wild-type (i.e. non-anarchistic) colonies. This suggests that, under queenless conditions, eggs laid by anarchistic workers lose their chemical protection and are therefore no longer perceived as queen-laid. Hence, the egg-marking signal seems to be only applied to eggs when queen and brood are present. This suggests that in the absence of queen and brood, the biosynthetic pathway that produces the egg-marking signal is switched off.

The unusual social organization of the antPachycondyla tridentata (Formicidae, ponerinae)

Colonies of the ponerine antPachycondyla tridentata from Malaysia occur with and without queens. In a total of 7 colonies we found more than 80% of the workers to be mated, irrespective of the presence or absence of queens. This is a hitherto unknown social organisation in ants. Queens and workers competed equally for reproduction. In the colonies investigated several ants were laying eggs. Behavioral observations revealed persistent dominance interactions between colony members. A few ants, but not necessarily a queen, occupied top positions. Removal of the most dominant ants led to a new hierarchy in which subordinate ants with developed ovaries were attacked significantly more frequently than non-reproductive ants. On the average, callows were more aggressive than older subordinate ants, displacing most of the older laying workers in one colony. Nestmate recognition tests revealed that non-reproductive ants were much more aggressive towards foreign ants than were ants with developed ovaries.