Synthesis of insect pheromones: Improved method for the preparation of queen substance and royal jelly of honeybees Apis mellifera

The biological activity of pheromones stems from various applications, especially in the area of pest control and insect monitoring; however, the quantity of pure pheromones available from natural sources is often extremely limited, because individual insects contain only minute amounts of pheromone. As our contribution to the field of pheromone synthesis, here we present a novel approach for the preparation of two known pheromones, namely queen substance and royal jelly of honeybees Apis mellifera. Our method is based on the original applications of lithiated α-alkenylphosphoramido anions as excellent synthetic equivalents of homoenolate anions.