Queen mandibular pheromone

Queen mandibular pheromone, or QMP, is a honey bee pheromone produced by the queen and fed to her attendants, who share it with the rest of the colony to give the colony a sense of belonging to the queen. Newly emerged queens produce very little QMP, but by the sixth day they are producing enough to attract drones for mating, and a laying queen produces about twice that amount. A lack of QMP appears to attract robber bees, while a study of foraging worker bees has suggested that foraging bees themselves are not attracted to QMP.