Elevated virus infection of honey bee queens reduces methyl oleate production and destabilizes colony-level social structure
Bibliographic record
Abstract
L.), severe virus infections in queens can trigger worker-initiated supersedure, a socially coordinated replacement of the queen that, while risky, is essential when her reproductive competence is compromised. How viruses impact the physiology of queen hosts, who bear unique reproductive burdens within their colonies, and how this perturbs colony social order remains poorly understood. We hypothesized that the supersedure response is mediated by pathogen-induced, intensity-dependent changes in queen pheromonal signaling. Laboratory infection experiments revealed that queens challenged with deformed wing virus B and black queen cell virus infections demonstrated a reduction in methyl oleate, a key component of the queen retinue pheromone, and field data corroborated this association. Lipidomics analysis demonstrated that infection coincides with a systemic lipid deficiency, especially in triacylglycerides (major energy reserves), providing a physiological link among viral stress, ovarian atrophy, and altered pheromone output. Notably, artificial suppression of ovary investment via restricted laying also caused methyl oleate production to decline; therefore, high virus infection likely indirectly suppresses methyl oleate production by reducing ovary mass. In field trials, we further show that synthetic pheromone blends containing methyl oleate significantly suppressed queen cell rearing compared to no-pheromone controls, whereas blends lacking this compound yielded an intermediate effect. These results demonstrate that virus-induced reproductive decline disrupts pheromone signaling, revealing a plausible mechanistic pathway by which pathogens can erode social cohesion.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".