SummaryWorker bees in a ‘retinue’ round the queen of an Apis cerana colony never licked her, and rarely touched her with their antennae, although they put them close to her and moved them vigorously. Workers that had been close to the queen showed no increased tendency to transfer food to other workers, or to make antennal contacts with them that could have been responsible for transferring pheromones. A caged queen was able to stabilize only those parts of a swarm cluster that were above her, and were connected to her by a chain of workers between which there was bodily contact with or without contact through the substratum. The ability of a caged queen to keep workers clustered on a comb, and to inhibit them from rearing queens, also operated only on workers above her. The queen's influence propagated through a chain of workers seemed to be little, if at all, attenuated by distance. It is suggested that the queen's presence is first communicated to workers close to her by pheromones emitted by the queen...