I'm studying, and started to wonder about mating flights and queen pheremones.
From reading (on here mostly), I understand that a virgin queen flies further afield from her home turf than drones do in order to find drones not related to her. So, she is as much on the lookout for drones, as they are for her, doesn't that mean that she would have been helped in that task if the drones also produced pheremones to attract her? How does she find the DCAs? Does she just fly out in the hope she'll get within 100m of a DCA for the drones to become aware of her?
From reading Dave Goulson, it seems to me bumble bees do the same. The drones wait for a virgin queen to fly by.
I know, I've never read about any drone pheremones, but thinking about it now, the sky, and finding each other, seems far more of a problem to me.
Kitta
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