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eliochel

Bees spread pheromones with their feet.

All castes (worker, queen, drone) emit pheromones. The tarsal gland secretion mentioned in a previous post also contains a trail pheromone, which workers leave on the forage they visit or at the hive entrance. This pheromone helps workers home in on the forage they may have found following the instructions of a waggle dance back at the hive. Returning to the hive, those foragers may again receive the homing signal of that pheromone at the hive entrance, along with others.

Also, the tarsal secretions and pheromones of the queen are distributed by the queen herself as she “patrols” the broodnest and other parts of the hive, searching for clean cells in which to lay.

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