Research on cuticular hydrocarbons of solitary and eusocial bees has greatly contributed to our understanding of the evolution of eusociality. However, to understand the transition from simple to complex societies, understanding subsocial species is necessary. Subsociality, defined as prolonged parental care, is a pre-requisite for eusociality yet cuticular hydrocarbons of subsocial bees are not well characterized. Here we present the first characterization and analysis of cuticular hydrocarbons in a subsocial bee, Ceratina calcarata Robertson. We found that cuticular hydrocarbons signal both age and reproductive status in this species. Pre-reproductive, virgin females overexpress three compounds, heneicosane, farnesol, and nonadecane. We show that pentacosane, a known fertility signal, is likely used to signal reproduction in C. calcarata. Since we found a possible reproductive signal in a subsocial bee this suggests that queen pheromones likely evolved from pre-existing fertility signals.

对独居蜜蜂和真社会性蜜蜂表皮碳氢化合物的研究极大地促进了我们对真社会性进化的理解。然而，要理解从简单社会到复杂社会的转变，理解亚社会物种是必要的。亚社会性，定义为长期的父母照顾，是真社会性的先决条件，但亚社会性蜜蜂的表皮碳氢化合物尚未得到很好的表征。在这里，我们首次对亚社会蜜蜂Ceratina calcarata表皮碳氢化合物进行表征和分析罗伯逊。我们发现表皮碳氢化合物表明该物种的年龄和生殖状态。生殖前的处女雌性过度表达三种化合物：二十二烷、法呢醇和十九烷。我们表明，已知的生育信号五十二烷很可能用于在C. calcarata 中发出繁殖信号。由于我们在亚社会蜜蜂中发现了可能的生殖信号，这表明蜂王信息素可能是从预先存在的生育信号进化而来的。