ABSTRACT
M. V. Brian described tests in which he found evidence for what he called a "queen recognition pheromone" in Myrmicarubra. The queen recognition pheromone of Solenopsis invicta is the first ant pheromone system of its kind to be described. Extracts of live queens were attractive in the olfactometer and gave a queen-like response when applied in the surrogate queen bioassay. In field bioassays, S. gerninata, S. xyloni, and S. richteri did not respond to either the extracts of live queens or to the synthetic compounds. B. M. Glancey has shown that once a colony has adopted a mated or a dealated virgin queen for its colony queen, the workers will tend the gaster of that queen after death if the poison sac remains inside the gaster. Evaluation of test materials against queenright laboratory colonies and field colonies required a different protocol than that used in bioassays with groups of isolated workers.
