Differences between queen piping temporal structures of two honeybee species, Apis cerana and Apis mellifera

Abstract

In swarming season, honeybee queens emit two kinds of queen piping signals: tooting and quacking. These signals are considered to be important for swarming, and honeybees distinguish between the two signals through differences in their temporal structures. In this study, we revealed that the piping signals of two honeybee species, Apis cerana and Apis mellifera, had different temporal structures. The tooting of A. cerana consisted of almost one long syllable, while that of A. mellifera was constructed from several syllables. The quacking of both species comprised around 50 short syllables, but the duration and period of the syllables of A. cerana were about half those of A. mellifera. The findings provide new insights that reveal the mechanisms of signal discrimination and the functions of the signals.