Aging is a natural process that reduces the overall fitness of the all organisms over time. Venomous organisms undergo this with their toxins in the venom glands. In workers bees the venom protein content was reduced to half after 10 to 14 days of age. The queen bee starts off with large quantities of venom believed to be used to kill the current queen to reproduce for the colony. The queen will loss 25% of her venom protein content after 2 weeks. Worker bees are separated into two categories of age. Ages 1-14 days and 14-64 days due to the change in amount of protein content. There is less dramatic decline in venom protein content after the 14th day. The aging process of the venom for queen bees need further study, but was found to last longer than the worker bees (Bridges et al. 1976). The venom for the Amazonian snake (Bothrops atrox) was established to alter as it ages. It was separated into 3 categories due to aging; Juvenile, sub-adult, and adult. The venom make up was found to change as the snake ages (Guercio et al. 2006). This is one of the only studies done on the effects of aging on the venom of snakes, but there have been quite a few for bees.
Bridges, A. Owen, M. (1976) 'Aging in the venom glands of
queen and worker honey bees (Apis melliferal): some morphological and chemical
observations', Toxicon, Vol. 14, Iss. 1, Pgs. 1-2.
Guercio, F. Lopez-Lozano, J. Paba, J. Ricart, C. Shevchenko,
A. Shevchenko, A. Sousa, M. (2006) 'Otogenetic variations in the venom proteome
of the Amazonian snake (Bothrops atrox)', Proteome Science, Vol. 4, Iss. 11.
