The article stated > While not all aspects of swarming are completely understood, I remember reading, although I can’t give proper attribution, that one of the triggers for swarm cell production is the queen’s pheromone is too faint.

Pete >This particular statement isn't even true. Swarming is not cued by faint queen substance; supersedure *might* be. Looks like the bar has been lowered pretty far for qualified writers.

 
Hi Pete-  but one can understand the author's position on the subject because this study and others offer the hypothesis that it is QMP that evokes swarming. Also, even more interesting is the theory that swarm cells occur at the peripheral edge of combs in large colonies because QMP is most deleted in that region. 


>QMP, in part, regulates the timing of colony-level reproduction (swarming). Queen rearing behaviors are inhibited by
sufficient amounts of QMP. When the titer of QMP decreases below inhibitory thresholds, workers initiate queen rearing; a   primer response. As colonies grow, worker population increases and the amount of QMP reaching individual bees decreases due to a dilution effect and restricted movement due to crowding congestion  (Naumann et al.,1993; Watmough et al., 1998a). 
Consequently, workers are released from the in inhibitory effects of QMP on queen rearing and begin to rear queens in preparation for colony-level reproduction, also referred to as swarming  (Watmough,  1997; Watmough et al., 1998b). The amount of QMP in circulation in the nest clearly has profound effects on individual and group-level reproduction. 


Cued in: honey bee pheromones as information flow and collective decision-making
Tanya Pankiw

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00891884/document

Bill Hesbach
Cheshire CT

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