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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Could you create artificial bee pheromones?
« on: 27/01/2021 17:07:04 »
Yes.
Pheromones are composed of small (often simple) molecules (they need to be small to be adequately distributed in the air), so they can be made in a lab. The molecules made in a lab are identical to the ones made by insects (though if the insect is creating a mixture of different molecules, it could be hard to replicate the precise mixture).
There was a chemistry group at the university I attended for undergraduate that had supposedly used a caged moth as a detector for the gas chromatograph they used for isolating and identifying moth pheromones. (they would inject an extract of the female moth onto the column, which would then separate the compounds as they passed through, letting them out one at a time. When the male moth went berserk, they knew that the compound coming off at that instant was a compound of interest.) I imagine similar techniques could be used for bees.
Pheromones are composed of small (often simple) molecules (they need to be small to be adequately distributed in the air), so they can be made in a lab. The molecules made in a lab are identical to the ones made by insects (though if the insect is creating a mixture of different molecules, it could be hard to replicate the precise mixture).
There was a chemistry group at the university I attended for undergraduate that had supposedly used a caged moth as a detector for the gas chromatograph they used for isolating and identifying moth pheromones. (they would inject an extract of the female moth onto the column, which would then separate the compounds as they passed through, letting them out one at a time. When the male moth went berserk, they knew that the compound coming off at that instant was a compound of interest.) I imagine similar techniques could be used for bees.
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