Pheromones (Archive Episode)

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how members of the same species send each other invisible chemical signals to influence the way they behave. Pheromones are used by species across the animal kingdom in a variety of ways, such as laying trails to be followed, to raise the alarm, to scatter from predators, to signal dominance and to enhance attractiveness and, in honey bees, even direct development into queen or worker.

With

Tristram Wyatt Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford

Jane Hurst William Prescott Professor of Animal Science at the University of Liverpool

and

Francis Ratnieks Professor of Apiculture and Head of the Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects at the University of Sussex

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, radio podcasts.
0:07.3	Right, you feeling ready? I'm feeling ready.
0:10.8	I'm Amal Rajin. Join me on my new podcast for in-depth conversations with pioneers and
0:16.0	innovators, talking about the trends and ideas that could help shape and change our future.
0:21.5	We are going to be digital citizens of this AI world, whether we like it or not.
0:26.2	From declining birth rates to disinformation online, can they solve the world's biggest challenges?
0:32.0	What I would love to do is go to the transfer and say radically cut the taxes of those with children.
0:37.3	Radical with me, Amal Rajan.
0:39.3	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:41.3	Hello, I'm Simon, producer of In Our Time.
0:44.1	Following Melvin's announcement that he's stepped down from In Our Time after almost 27 years,
0:49.8	we're taking the time to celebrate his outstanding work with some favourite episodes from our archive
0:55.3	and thanks to everyone who's been in touch. In due course, we'll return with new programmes
1:00.3	and a new presenter, but till then, here's Melvin with pheromones from 2019.
1:06.8	Hello, in 1959, scientists discovered pheromones, the chemical signals that make so many animals act without thinking or needing to think.
1:15.5	Ants marching in a line follow pheromones. Queen bees keep their status in the hive with them.
1:20.8	They're the instant code word for bees to swarm, to attack or flee, and are the great unconscious signal of sexual attraction across so many species.
1:29.0	Insects, fish and mammals use them to advance the cause of their own species.
1:32.4	As for humans, that's debatable, as we'll hear.
1:35.7	With me to discuss, pheromones are Tristram Wyatt, senior research fellow at the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford,
1:43.2	Jane Hurst, William Prescott, Professor of Animal Science at the University of Liverpool,
1:47.5	and Francis Rutniak, Professor of Apiculture and Head of the Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects at the University of Sussex.
	...

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