Dual Effect of Wasp Queen Pheromone in Regulating Insect Sociality (Current Biology)

Social insect queens use pheromones to stop the workers from reproducing. Oi et al. show that in wasps, one of these sterility-inducing pheromones is also used by the queen to mark her eggs and enable the workers to recognize and `police` eggs laid by other workers. This shows that queen pheromones regulate insect sociality in several distinct ways.