Queen bees have been found to display honesty signals about their reproductive status and quality.
The new research by the Center for Pollinator Research may help to explain why the honeybee population is in decline.
The bees’ chemical signals, known as pheromones, convey a range of detailed information, with queen bees found to be ‘telling’ the workers their mating patterns.
The information is key to understanding survival of bees, as bee colonies that are led by a queen bee who has mated more are genetically more diverse, more productive and therefore less likely to collapse.
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