Читать книгу Honey Bee Medicine for the Veterinary Practitioner - Группа авторов - Страница 86

The male or drone honey bee differs significantly from his worker sisters, and with their singular reproductive role of sperm production and mating, drones produce very few pheromonal signals (Bortolotti and Costa 2014; Hrassnigg and Crailsheim 2005). The most important pheromone of drone bees is released from their mandibular gland, and functions to attract other drone bees to the male congregation areas in preparation for mating. Similar to female honey bees, drone bees also possess unique cuticular pheromone signals that allow worker bees to distinguish between the sexes and drone bees of different ages (Bortolotti and Costa 2014). In addition, the regulation of drone brood production and the rejection of adult drone bees from a colony are likely under pheromonal control (Free 1987).