ABSTRACT
The ultrastructure of the Dufour gland has been studied in several species of formicine and myrmicine ants. The lumen is lined with a monolayered epithelium covered with a cuticula of approximately 0.3 μ species studied. Modifications of the cell membrane are restricted to basal infoldings in the formicine Dufour gland. Inseminated queens were accepted to a high percentage (70%) as first queens but to a significantly lower percentage (28%) as second queens. Behaviour of workers and virgin queens is being studied prior to and during swarming of de-queened laboratory colonies of Apis mellifera. A delay in time of emergence of queens was found in the majority of hives subjected to recorded tooting. Although the tooting queen ususally joins the worker bees during swarming it has been established several times that instead a quacking queens joins the swarm, while the tooting queens remains in the hive.
