This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Shahla Farzan.Every honeybee colony has its own unique scent like a fingerprint.And bees use that scent to recognize their nest mates―basically saying, “You smell like me, so I’m going to let you into the colony.”But here’s the mystery: If you transfer a baby bee into a new hive, not only does the colony accept it, but that bee will eventually smell like its adopted nest mates―even though they’re not genetically related.“This kind of got us thinking, ‘Perhaps it’s not actually the genetics of the bee; it’s actually the genetics of microbes that live within the bee.’”Cassondra Vernier is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois.She knew gut microbes could affect the scent and communication of other animals, like hyenas.So she and her co-authors designed a series of experiments to test whether microbes also change the scent compounds coating the outside of honeybees, known as cuticular hydrocarbons.In one experiment, they fed different gut microbes to newly hatched sister bees.The bees developed distinct microbiomes―and they also produced different cuticular hydrocarbon scents.But On the other hand ...“If they were treated with different inoculums, they recognized each other as non-nest mates.And they attacked each other, usually in the form of biting each other.”In other words, bees from the same colony did not recognize each other when they had different gut microbes.
