Foreign Queen Research Articles

Positive Eusocial Impacts on Ants by Taurine Derivatives.

The present study is to investigate potential eusocial effects on ants from treatment of taurine or its derivatives: galactose-taurine (GT) or xylose-taurine (XT). Japanese carpenter ants (Camponotus japonicus) were maintained on taurine-supplemented diets, and their performance was evaluated according to arbitrary eusocial indexes. Four classes of criteria were employed: establishment of residence chambers, survival at severe conditions, cooperative defense index (CDI), and population size. Taurine or its derivatives were administered orally in 0.1mM sucrose solution. When fed with taurine or taurine derivatives, ants built more chambers than the non-fed control. Among the taurine groups, the XT-fed group showed the highest number of chambers. Differences in survivorship were obvious between the control and taurine-fed groups at the extreme conditions of light exposure and high temperature. More ants survived when fed with taurine or its derivatives. The taurine-supplemented groups took less time to organize a defense form than the control. The XT-fed group showed a high level of CDI which refer to the willingness to participate in defense against a foreign queen. The taurine-fed group sustained higher total numbers of ants. The XT-fed groups showed a 15% increase in the number of workers and an 11% increase in the number of eggs. The taurine-fed ants positively responded according to the eusocial vitality indexes, especially when fed with XT. In summary, these results show that ants respond more like superorganisms when treated with XT among taurine or its two derivatives.

Effects of Temperature During Package Transportation on Queen Establishment and Survival in Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae).

Honey bee (Apis mellifera) (Linnaeus) (Hymenoptera: Apidae) queens, the reproductive female caste, are crucial for colony success, and many management problems that beekeepers face are related to their diminished reproductive quality and premature failure. Previous research has suggested that temperature extremes may affect the viability of stored sperm in queens' spermathecae, thus the abiotic conditions of queens during transport may be germane to these problems. We recorded the temperatures experienced by queens during 2 yr of package transportation and tracked the newly installed colonies through establishment and buildup. During this critical 6-8 wk period, we observed typically high rates of queen failure (~25%) but found no indication that these postinstallation queen events were driven by temperature-related damage to stored sperm (an essential component of queen quality) incurred during transportation. We also found no indication of significant hot or cold zones across the truckloads of packages that would suggest a problem in how packages are insulated during transportation. However, we did observe significantly higher temperatures (31.2 vs. 29.9°C) and lower temperature variance (8.8 vs. 12.2) in queens that ultimately failed during the observation period, indicating that workers may respond differently to these queens in a way that manifests as more insulating clusters around queen cages. If so, then the collective process by which workers accept or reject a foreign queen may already be detectable even if it does not ultimately conclude until some weeks later. Nevertheless, it remains unclear why large numbers of otherwise high-quality queens are failing in newly installed packages.

Of Traitors and Saints: Foreign Consorts between Accusations and Propaganda in the First World War

The rumours about the German descent and sexual promiscuity of the Russian Tsarina Alexandra contributed to the fall of the Romanov regime in 1917 as foreignness and gender narratives were used by revolutionary groups to undermine the sacrosanct aura of the Russian dynasty. However, the utilisation of gender norms and the foreign descent of a royal consort for political purposes was not a uniquely Russian phenomenon. In fact, similar allegations of treason and depravity against foreign consorts existed in many First World War monarchies. This article puts the stereotype of the ‘evil foreign queen’ in an historical context and analyses the functionality and motives of these rumours in the conduct of the war. The article also examines the success and failure of wartime counter-narratives and, thereby, contributes a new aspect to the impact of the war on European monarchy.

Women & War in Antiquity by Jacqueline Fabre-Serris and Alison Keith

BOOK REVIEWS Women & War in Antiquity. Edited by Jacqueline Fabre-Serris and Alison Keith. Baltimore:JohnsHopkinsUniversityPress,2015.Pp.ix+341.Hardcover,$55.00. ISBN 978-1-4214-1762-2. his much-needed volume is the result of the 2009 symposium that launched the European Network on Gender Studies in Antiquity (EuGeStA).Itssixteenessays(allwrittenortranslatedintoEnglish)open the doors to an aspect of ancient warfare that has received too little attention thus far, that of women’s role in war, both as historical actors and as a lens through which war was imagined. Both Greek and Roman topics are addressed, ranging from the Homeric epics to Claudian’s Late Antique epic-panegyrics, from tragedy to elegy, from Carian queens to Roman Imperial women. Theessaysaredividedintotwoparts,onefocusedonliterarycriticism,theother with a historical approach. That said, the greatest strength of the volume is the fruitful dialogue between historians and literary critics that blurs the apparent structural and disciplinary divide. Another strength is the editors’ forthrightness about what kinds of claims the extant ancient sources allow us to make.Written or produced by men and for men, the vast majority of our literary, historical, and materialsourcescanbeoflittlehelpinreconstructingthefemaleexperienceofwar in antiquity; instead, they “simultaneously bear witness to male views of female identityandtoemotionsandconductthattheythemselvesregardascharacteristic of the female sex” (4). Rather than summarizing each contribution, I highlight here several essays that exemplify the range and originality of the volume’s contents. To begin the collection, Philippe Rousseau challenges the traditional interpretation of Hector’s famous words to Andromache (Il. 6.490–3), commanding her to return to her weaving and leave the conduct of war to men, as a maxim about normative gender roles. He reads these lines together with two passages in the Odyssey that closely repeat them, when Telemachus addresses his mother at Od. 1.356–9 and again at Od. 21.350–3, and argues for an intentional intertextual relationship between the three passages, with the Odyssey quoting the Iliad, and the latter Odyssey passage referring to the former. Based on his analysis of all three passages, Rousseau proposes that the famous Iliadic passage is no gnomic statement, but rather that Hector is referring to the specific battle that forced his brief withdrawal inside the T BOOK REVIEWS 381 walls of Troy. Therefore, by overgeneralizing Hector’s words, we may have been misrepresenting the Homeric attitude towards women and war. Yet not all women were shut out of battle. Judith Hallett tackles the representation of warrior women in Rome, in an essay that synthesizes ancient historical narratives, Roman elegy, and sling-bullet inscriptions from the Perusine WartodeconstructtheportraitofFulvia,theinfamouslyoverbearingwifeofMark Antony (among others). Hallett deftly uses these diverse sources to argue that Plutarch’s characterization of Fulvia as a woman who wished “to rule a ruler and command a commander” (Plut. Ant. 10.3) was born out of elegiac notions of the domina, who combined feminine sensuality with masculine power. Or, perhaps, Fulvia herself helped give birth to the domina-figure: Hallett ends the essay by emphasizing the importance “of exploring the intersections between historical reality and literary fiction, of recognizing that even historical Roman women are ‘written’, and of considering if ‘written women’ may also be historical” (262–3). The collective actions of women in Greek warfare are the focus of the essays writtenbyStellaGeorgoudiandPascalPayen,whichtheeditorswiselyjuxtaposed to draw attention to their conflicting theoretical frameworks. Georgoudi takes as her premise that women were involved in Greek civic life in a number of ways, whereas Payen maintains that women are absent from Greek war and reflections thereupon precisely because they were not citizens and were thus excluded from civic life. According to Payen, if barbarian women and the female relatives of tyrants are excepted, Greek women only engage in warfare as defensive warriors who act collectively; a famous foreign queen like Tomyris or Artemisia thus represents an inversion of male, civic order. Georgoudi, on the other hand, dismisses the idea of “inversion” or “anomaly” as an explanation of women’s role in Greek war. By examining accounts of women’s collective actions in war, she instead proposes that we should talk about women’s “participation,” “collaboration,” and “cooperation” with the men of their communities. WomenandWarinAntiquityisaremarkablecollectionofhistoricalandliterary research, one that has much to interest the generalist, yet is...

Vin et bière en Proverbes 31,4–7

The author offers a textual criticism and a structural and literary analysis of Pr 31:3–7. This triple inquiry has several purposes: to show that the prohibition found in verses 4–5 is not absolute and that the ethics promoted by the foreign queen are identical to the ethics of the God of Israel and of Judah; to emphasize that the recommendation in verses 6–7 is not intended to promote a puritan morality or pure cynicism. On the contrary, this recommendation has a therapeutic aim and reflects compassion for those who are dying.

Laura Lunger Knoppers Politicizing Domesticity from Henrietta Maria to Milton’s EvePoliticizing Domesticity from Henrietta Maria to Milton’s Eve. Laura Lunger Knoppers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Pp. xiv+225.

Laura Lunger Knoppers Politicizing Domesticity from Henrietta Maria to Milton’s EvePoliticizing Domesticity from Henrietta Maria to Milton’s Eve. Laura Lunger Knoppers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Pp. xiv+225.

The Medea Complex—Myth and Modern Manifestation

The Medea complex refers to a disturbed mother-child relationship with obvious destructive aspects, and it evokes a central theme that Jung articulated in his writing about the Terrible Mother. The best-known story of Medea is based on the mythical figure portrayed in Euripides's fifth-century BCE play. The complex, as well as this story, includes elements of betrayal, abandonment, stealing, and vengeance directed at helpless children. Two case examples discuss how the Medea complex appears, first in a parent and second in a son. Maternal and paternal roles in the complex are considered as well as the symbolic implications of killing children. The complex is also examined through interrelated literary and historical depictions of the dangerous feminine as foreign queen from Apollonius, Virgil, and Shakespeare.

A fifth major genetic group among honeybees revealed in Syria

BackgroundApiculture has been practiced in North Africa and the Middle-East from antiquity. Several thousand years of selective breeding have left a mosaic of Apis mellifera subspecies in the Middle-East, many uniquely adapted and survived to local environmental conditions. In this study we explore the genetic diversity of A. mellifera from Syria (n = 1258), Lebanon (n = 169) and Iraq (n = 35) based on 14 short tandem repeat (STR) loci in the context of reference populations from throughout the Old World (n = 732).ResultsOur data suggest that the Syrian honeybee Apis mellifera syriaca occurs in both Syrian and Lebanese territories, with no significant genetic variability between respective populations from Syria and Lebanon. All studied populations clustered within a new fifth independent nuclear cluster, congruent with an mtDNA Z haplotype identified in a previous study. Syrian honeybee populations are not associated with Oriental lineage O, except for sporadic introgression into some populations close to the Turkish and Iraqi borders. Southern Syrian and Lebanese populations demonstrated high levels of genetic diversity compared to the northern populations.ConclusionThis study revealed the effects of foreign queen importations on Syrian bee populations, especially for the region of Tartus, where extensive introgression of A. m. anatolica and/or A. m. caucasica alleles were identified. The policy of creating genetic conservation centers for the Syrian subspecies should take into consideration the influence of the oriental lineage O from the northern Syrian border and the large population of genetically divergent indigenous honeybees located in southern Syria.

Chemical communication in Ropalidia marginata: Dufour's gland contains queen signal that is perceived across colonies and does not contain colony signal

Queens of the primitively eusocial wasp Ropalidia marginata appear to maintain reproductive monopoly through pheromone rather than through physical aggression. Upon queen removal, one of the workers (potential queen, PQ) becomes extremely aggressive but drops her aggression immediately upon returning the queen. If the queen is not returned, the PQ gradually drops her aggression and becomes the next queen of the colony. In a previous study, the Dufour's gland was found to be at least one source of the queen pheromone. Queen-worker classification could be done with 100% accuracy in a discriminant analysis, using the compositions of their respective Dufour's glands. In a bioassay, the PQ dropped her aggression in response to the queen's Dufour's gland macerate, suggesting that the queen's Dufour's gland contents mimicked the queen herself. In the present study, we found that the PQ also dropped her aggression in response to the macerate of a foreign queen's Dufour's gland. This suggests that the queen signal is perceived across colonies. This also suggests that the Dufour's gland in R. marginata does not contain information about nestmateship, because queens are attacked when introduced into foreign colonies, and hence PQ is not expected to reduce her aggression in response to a foreign queen's signal. The latter conclusion is especially significant because the Dufour's gland chemicals are adequate to classify individuals correctly not only on the basis of fertility status (queen versus worker) but also according to their colony membership, using discriminant analysis. This leads to the additional conclusion (and precaution) that the ability to statistically discriminate organisms using their chemical profiles does not necessarily imply that the organisms themselves can make such discrimination.

The �Jezebel spirit�: A scholarly inquiry

Queen Jezebel is rightly recognised as one of the powerful women in the Old Testament. In the biblical text she is introduced as a �foreign� queen and wife to Ahab, the 8th century king of the northern kingdom, Israel. This article examines some of the interpretations of this character in the church over the centuries. The focus falls on the latest development in this regard whereby, in some circles, the biblical character is linked to the existence of a �Jezebel spirit� within the contemporary church. On the basis of a narratological reading of the Jezebel texts it is indicated that such an interpretation is unfounded and fails to take cognisance of developments in biblical interpretation related to literary understandings of the text.

Foreign ant queens are accepted but produce fewer offspring

Understanding social evolution requires us to understand the processes regulating the number of breeders within social groups and how they partition reproduction. Queens in polygynous (multiple queens per colony) ants often seek adoption in established colonies instead of founding a new colony independently. This mode of dispersal leads to potential conflicts, as kin selection theory predicts that resident workers should favour nestmate queens over foreign queens. Here we compared the survival of foreign and resident queens as well as their relative reproductive share. We used the ant Formica exsecta to construct colonies consisting of one queen with workers related to this resident queen and introduced a foreign queen. We found that the survival of foreign queens did not differ from that of resident queens over a period of 136 days. However, the genetic analyses revealed that resident queens produced a 1.5-fold higher number of offspring than introduced queens, and had an equal or higher share in 80% of the colonies. These data indicate that some discrimination can occur against dispersing individuals and that dispersal can thus have costs in terms of direct reproduction for dispersing queens.

Dido's Daughters: Literacy, Gender, and Empire in Early Modern Europe and France by Margaret W. Ferguson (review)

472 Reviews Dido's Daughters: Literacy, Gender, and Empire in Early Modern Europe and France. By Margaret W. Ferguson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2003. xiv + 506 pp. ?17.50. ISBN 0-226-24312-5. Margaret W. Ferguson's Dido's Daughters, which received honourable mention in the biennial Rene Wellek Prize, is a large book in all senses. Beginning with a survey of Western conceptions of the preliterate and literacy, Ferguson combines theoretical, historical, anthropological, and cultural concerns to decentre teleological and mas? culine conceptions of the nature and developments of language and literature. Her focus is on the gendered construction of literacy and therefore on the gendering of literature and literaryeducation, fromthe early modern period in England and France to the present. Indeed, one can read Dido's Daughters as a rewriting, reorienting, and updating of works such as Erich Auerbach's Literary Language and its Public in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965) as well as his Mimesis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953). The ambitious aim ofthe book is to offer a feminist, and in a postmodern manner fractured, grand recit of the 'story of modernization' (p. 377). Narratives of progress and enlightenment are replaced with those of repression, exclusion, and subordination that linked together the 'imperfect' literacies of women and colonized peoples. This linkage is explored in the third chapter, which discusses the humanist project of educationalists such as Richard Mulcaster, to create uniform teaching methods and language usage in order to enable the 'imperial future Mulcaster imagines for his country' (p. 169). Mulcaster's imperial dream is extrapolated from his desire to increase the 'reatch' of English and from his and other humanists' wish that English should become a versatile and stable language, like Latin. In the context of Mulcaster' s aims an older (although undoubtedly masculine and dominant) vision of a revived and renewed European empire is surely being invoked?the topic, forinstance, of Frances Yates's Astrea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century (London: Routledge, 1975)?rather than a plan to institute English-language lessons for New World peoples. The relationship between older concepts of European empire and the imperial ventures ofthe Tudors is a vexed one, especially given that the language ofthe time referredto plantations, but here two concepts of empire are merged seamlessly. If the villains ofthe book are capitalism, imperialism, and male prescriptive gram? marians, coalescing in the era of print culture to create a modern world of nations, au? thorized languages, and patterns of subordination, there are also heroines. The second part of the book concentrates on four late medieval and early modern women, Dido's daughters, who challengedmale linguistic and literaryhegemony: two Frenchwomen, Christine de Pizan and Marguerite de Navarre, and two Englishwomen, Elizabeth Cary and Aphra Behn. Christine de Pizan is described as charting a careful path in her writings, working through appropriation and citation and then composing her most famous work, the Cite des dames, itselfundergoing appropriation as it was 'Englished' for 'gentleman readers [. . .] seeking advancement' (p. 122). Marguerite de Navarre, in contrast to Pizan a remarkably well-connected and deeply privileged writer, is described as 'constructing an imperialist project of her own?one that repeatedly stresses the need to restrain men's political and sexual ambitions' (p. 125). The dis? cussion of Marguerite's courtly tales of love and virtue, which instantiated women as rulers of morality and men, is followed by a discussion of an altogther more militant noblewoman, Lady Elizabeth Cary. Her Tragedy of Miriam has been much revived and reprinted in recent years, achieving (briefly) canonical status in a Longman an? thology of British literature. This chapter offersa close reading of Miriam alongside a reading of Shakespeare's portrait of a foreign queen in Antony and Cleopatra. The final chapter discusses Aphra Behn and in particular her two works with New World settings, Oroonoko and the Widdow Ranter. Ferguson's Behn is 'ambivalent' MLR, 100.2, 2005 473 in her assessment ofthe 'imperial project' (p. 351), as well as ambivalent about race. Ferguson makes some odd claims, suggesting that Nathaniel Bacon, the 'outlaw' white colonist of the Widdow Ranter who likens himself to 'the black African HannibaP...

Influence of queen weight and colony origin on worker response in Solenopsis geminata

. The influence of weight and colony origin of the queen of Solenopsis geminata (F.) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) on worker attraction is studied under laboratory conditions. In the first experiment, worker response to individual queens of different weight from the same colony is evaluated. Heavier queens are more attractive than smaller queens to their own workers. In subsequent experiments, the colony origin effect is investigated and worker response to a pair of queens of the same weight from the same or different colonies is compared. When queens are from the same colony, workers do not show a significant preference between queens. However, when queens are from a different colony, workers are significantly more attracted to their own queen than to the foreign queen. Finally, the response of workers to queens of different weight from the same or different colonies is investigated. In both cases, workers are significantly more attracted to a heavier queen than a lighter queen, even if the lighter queen is their own queen. A putative pheromonal component (E)-6-(1-pentenyl)-2H-2-pyranone, is not positively correlated with queen weight.

Balling behaviour in the honey bee in response to exogenous queen mandibular gland pheromone

SUMMARYHoney bee (Apis mellifera) colonies generally respond to the introduction of a foreign queen by aggressively surrounding or ‘balling’ the new queen. We explored the role of queen mandibular gland pheromone (QMP) in initiating balling behaviour. The addition of a synthetic blend of QMP to the abdomen of worker bees initiated balling behaviour of these workers when re-introduced into their own colony. There was a positive, dose-dependent relationship between the number of balls formed, time to ball formation and size of balls formed. When the QMP dose was below that normally found on a queen, 10−3 queen equivalents, it resulted in significantly slower ball formation and smaller ball diameter. The acid components of the five-component QMP elicited balling behaviour while the aromatic components did not, but the full blend elicited the strongest response. Stinging behaviour was the most prevalent and persistent factor preceding the formation of balls. We concur with others who have proposed that a ‘marking’ pheromone is released when an aggressive worker flexes her abdomen, and that the release of this pheromone causes ball formation. There were no obvious changes in resident queen behaviour while balling of QMP-treated workers was occurring. We conclude that queen mandibular gland pheromone is a significant signal in foreign queen recognition and the initiation of balling behaviour.

Colony takeover by a socially parasitic ant, Polyergus breviceps: the role of chemicals obtained during host-queen killing

Abstract. The behavioural adaptations of parasitic ant queens are more complex than those of parasitic birds, in which the egg-laying female approaches the nest only when the host parents are absent, and leaves immediately after egg deposition. Queens of the socially parasitic ant Polyergus breviceps are incapable of rearing their own brood, and therefore require the assistance of host Formica workers soon after egg laying. Accordingly, a newly mated Polyergus queen must penetrate a nest of Formica, kill the host queen, and become permanently accepted by the slave species' workers. Laboratory tests show that a Polyergus queen will similarly attack and bite a dead (and therefore motionless) Formica queen. Immediately after attacking the dead host queen, the Polyergus queen will be accepted by workers from any colony of Formica belonging to the same species of the dead queen (but will be attacked by workers from other Formica species). Preliminary results also indicate that any adoption-facilitating chemicals obtained by the Polyergus queen are still effective 1 week after killing the host Formica queen. When Polyergus queens raised in colonies containing F. gnava were introduced into nests of F. occulta, most showed little interest in attacking the resident Formica queen. In four of 10 tests, however, the Polyergus queen killed the foreign queen and was accepted by the F. occulta workers. Such chemical transfer of foreign-queen odours may have played a key role in the evolution of social parasitism in Polyergus.

Temporal dynamics of facultative social parasitism in bumble bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

Parasitical behaviour is thought to play an important, yet so far largely unknown role in the evolution and maintenance of insect sociality. In this study, the influence of interspecific, facultative social parasitism upon bumble bee, Bombus, nesting biology was explored. Queens of B. affinis were introduced into 38 various-sized laboratory colonies of B. terricola. Foreign queens were very successful at killing the resident queen and usurping pre-worker nests (77% wins), although usurpation success decreased to 30% in colonies that contained workers. In addition, B. affinis queens were unable to suppress ovarian development in B. terricola workers that emerged prior to nest usurpation, resulting in the eventual death or expulsion of the foreign queen. In contrast, ovarian development was supporessed in workers that eclosed in the presence of a foreign queen, and in workers that were less than 5 h old when confined in small experimental boxes with a B. affinis queen. Foreign queens that usurped a nest prior to worker emergence were assisted by B. terricola workers, and achieved similar reproductive success when compared to a cohort of 22 B. affinis queens that initiated their own nests in the laboratory. These results suggest that there are periods in the ontogeny of Bombus nest defence, recognition and dominance during which bees are sensitive to the effects of nest parasitism. In bumble bees, and in other social insects, individuals of some species may exploit these weaknesses for their own reproductive benefit.

Worker and queen honey bee behavior during foreign queen introduction

Introductions of foreign queen honey bees (Apis mellifera) to observation colonies containing individually marked workers resulted in three distinct, simultaneously occurring responses: 1) complete passivity; 2) nonaggressive balling behavior; and 3) aggressive balling behavior. Balling persisted for 9.2 h (N=12) and involved approximately 15–20% of the colonies' populations. Participation in a ball was age-dependent, with 91.2% of the balling workers 12 days old or older. Only a small fraction (0.5–2%) of the colonies' workers behaved aggressively, while the remainder displayed nonaggressive balling behavior. Aggressive workers spent significantly more time in a ball than did nonaggressive workers, but there was no difference in age between the two subgroups. Foreign queens were not killed immediately upon introduction and were not continuously attacked throughout the balling period. Balling workers gradually became conditioned to some foreign queens beginning 3–5 h after introduction; the incidence of worker aggression steaily decreased while queen activity increased. Observations of queen behavior during balling do not support the “stress pheromone hypothesis” (Yadava andSmith, 1971).

Effects of Artificial Odors and Pheromones on Queen Discrimination by Honey Bees (Apis mellifera L.1)

Honey bees in a swarm can distinguish and will prefer their own over a foreign queen. Continuous feeding of artificially scented syrup to the bees over a few days gradually diminishes their ability to discriminate. When artificial Nassanoff pheromone is released from a dispenser near a foreign queen, she is preferred to a familiar queen.

Queen Discrimination by Honey Bee1 Swarms

A dequeened swarm of honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) can distinquish between their own and a foreign queen when presented with a choice. We found that bees from a dequeened swarm, presented with 2 foreign queens, prefer the one more similar in age and reproductive status to their original queen. In addition, bees from a swarm with a mated queen prefer an old virgin over a young virgin queen. The learned recognition of the own queen's pheromone production, possibly in conjunction with her acquired environmental or hive odor, may account for this ability of the workers.

‘The Leprous Queen’–A Ballad from Lesbos

An apparently unpublished ballad originating from the village of Antissa in Lesbos tells the story of a foreign queen who was afflicted with leprosy and subsequently cured by bathing in a stream which possessed healing properties.