Glossary
A chemical secretion deposited by the queen bee from tarsal glands on her feet as she walks across comb surfaces. This footprint pheromone signals the queen's recent presence on a specific comb, inhibiting the construction of queen cups on frequently visited surfaces and helping workers assess the queen's health and activity level.
As the queen walks across comb, her tarsal glands deposit a thin trail of pheromone on the surface. Workers detect this chemical footprint and use it to gauge how recently and how frequently the queen has visited a particular area. In the heart of the brood nest where the queen walks often, the pheromone is strong, signaling her active presence.
On comb surfaces where the queen has not walked recently, the absence of footprint pheromone triggers behaviors associated with queen absence: workers may begin constructing queen cups, show increased agitation, or start developing ovaries. This anchoring function helps the colony continuously verify the queen's presence without direct physical contact.
Anchoring pheromone explains why queen cups are more commonly found on the edges and bottoms of frames rather than in the center of the brood nest. The queen walks across her active laying area constantly, depositing heavy footprint trails that suppress cup construction. Peripheral areas receive less queen traffic and less pheromone.
This also explains why colonies become restless very quickly when the queen is removed: her footprint pheromone begins fading within hours, and without queen mandibular pheromone being actively distributed, workers detect her absence far faster than most beekeepers realize.
Footprint pheromone fades relatively quickly, within hours to a day or two. This rapid fading ensures workers have a real-time assessment of the queen's activity rather than a historical record. A healthy, active queen continuously refreshes the pheromone across her comb.
No. QMP (queen mandibular pheromone) is the primary queen signal, distributed through contact and trophallaxis throughout the colony. Footprint pheromone is a location-specific secondary signal that marks where the queen has physically walked. Both are important but serve different communication functions.
Workers do deposit some chemical markers from their tarsal glands, but the composition and biological effect differ from the queen's footprint pheromone. Worker footprint chemicals may help with nest mate recognition and forage marking, but they do not have the queen cup inhibition effect.
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