Queen's Rule!
In an ant colony there's no denying who's boss. While the queen lays eggs, the rest of the workers don't reproduce, and now we know why.
An internation team of scientists, including chemical ecologists from Keele University, discovered that queens coat their eggs with a pheremone that prevents workers from laying their own eggs. When the scientists set up colonies with no queen, the workers began to lay their own eggs - but stopped doing so when queen-laid eggs were added.
That was all the short piece said.
I wondered if anybody had anything to add to this information? What species do this? What do the workers mate with/how do the workers get fertilised - I thought most species only mated in flight once a year with the "rare" flying male ants?
Anybody know anything else on this subject/have any thoughts on this?
