Does sex influence element accumulation in honey bees: workers vs drones

Abstract

Honey bees are social insects that have divided their work. Bees have two sexes, male and female. Female honey bees are queens and worker bees, while males are called drones. Worker bees have different tasks in the hive including gathering of food, its processing, caring for brood, protecting the hive, produce wax, nourish workers, drones and queen. Drones are male bees whose only role is to mate with a virgin queen. Many studies have dealt with physiology, behavior, morphology of workers and drones. This is the first study that compared differences in element accumulation and composition between workers and drones honey bees. It was observed that worker honey bees have higher concentration, from 116 % to 517 %, of most elements analyzed. Drones had higher concentration of essential elements to bees, Na, Mg, P, S, K, Zn, Cu and especially Se which was 2.2-fold higher. These differences can be attributed to environmental exposure; reproductive role of drones, high Se in sperm; but mostly to the food workers and drones eat. Worker bees feed on unprocessed food, mostly pollen, which is rich in minerals. Drones are fed by worker bees pre-processed food. Here we show that worker honey bees have a filtering mechanism that enables them to accumulate non-essential elements and not pass them on through the processed food to drones or larva.