Distinguishing the effects of dilution and restricted movement on the intra-nest transmission of honey-bee queen pheromones
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| Authors: | Watmough, J; Winston, M; Slessor, K |
| Year: | 1998 |
| Journal: | Bull. Math. Biol. 60: 307-327 Article Link (DOI) |
| Title: | Distinguishing the effects of dilution and restricted movement on the intra-nest transmission of honey-bee queen pheromones |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a simple model for the movement of a non-volatile pheromone through a honey-bee hive. The model is specifically developed for a pheromone produced by the queen which is thought to regulate colony swarming. Although the model begins as a system of partial integro-differential equations, it is in the end reduced to a system of linear, first-order partial differential equations for the average pheromone level per worker, che pheromone level of the hive substrate, and the pheromone level of the queen. Analysis of this system shows that both colony size and hive area have independent effects on the average pheromone levels of the workers, hut that worker congestion can have an even stronger effect on the pheromone distribution. These results establish a relationship between colony size, hive area, worker crowding, and queen-pheromone transmission. (C) 1998 Society for Mathematical Biology. |
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