Patrick H. Wells

Spontaneous flower constancy and learning in honey bees as a function of colour

When presented with an artificial flower patch of blue and yellow pedicellate flowers, individual honey bees, Apis mellifera L., became constant to one of the two flower colours, rarely even sampling the alternative colour. Some bees visited only blue flowers while others visited only yellow flowers. This paper describes the onset of constancy for bees that had had no experience with the experimental apparatus. In 3020 visits, bees failed to land on or drink from the flower colour on which they first landed only 17 times. This behaviour was not modified by quality or quantity of reward, training to the experimental site, group effects or presence of odour during trials. However, when we trained bees to a target painted with two colours and then forced them to sample monomorphic flower patches in sequence, all bees visited the only colour present: yellow or blue. When we subsequently offered these same bees yellow and blue flowers simultaneously (rewarded choices), they became constant. Eleven of 23 bees showed constancy to the less rewarding flower morph without even sampling the alternative. Those bees failed to sample even though they had previously been forced to visit the alternative flower morph, which offered a reward with twice the calories/volume. Constancy is thus spontaneous in honey bees, but it can be hidden by some experimental protocols designed to study learning.1997The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour

Honey Bee Recruitment to Food Sources: Olfaction or Language?

Honey bee recruits locate food sources by olfaction and not by use of distance and direction information contained in the recruitment dance. Recruitment efficiency increases as odor of the food source accumulates in the hive, from hour to hour and from day to day. Flight patterns, landing patterns, bee odor, and Nassanoff secretion apparently do not aid in recruitment of bees.

Mate location, population growth and species extinction

The effects of mate location efficiency on the dynamics of population growth and extinction were modeled with a view towards future species conservation efforts. Mate location is shown to be based on the Allee principle. Higher population densities produce greater mate location success rates. Low population densities generate population growth rates that are smaller than mortality rates, and, thus, produce a condition leading to species extinction. A survey of animal phyla suggests that selection for behaviors, morphology and physiology, which either temporarily increase mating season population densities or effectively increase population densities by increasing the distance from which a mate can be recognized, has shaped the evolution of species. A mechanism is provided for understanding this process of extinction, and a framework is presented for constructing a management plan for species at risk.

HONEY BEE FORAGING ECOLOGY: OPTIMAL DIET, MINIMAL UNCERTAINTY OR INDIVIDUAL CONSTANCY?

SUMMARY (1) Experiments using honey bees and artificial flower patches were designed to test three alternative foraging ecology models: optimal diet, minimal uncertainty, and individual constancy. Honey bee responses to a mixed colour flower patch and to flower morph associated differences in reward quantity, quality, and frequency were measured. (2) Each honey bee visiting a patch of randomly distributed blue and yellow flowers was constant to one colour, even though that behaviour was suboptimal. (3) When reward quantity was unequal between the two flower morphs each bee was constant to one colour, even though that behaviour often resulted in suboptimal reward. (4) When reward quality was unequal between the two colour morphs each bee was constant to one colour, even though that behaviour often resulted in suboptimal reward. (5) When reward frequency was higher in one flower morph than in the other each bee was constant to one colour, even though that behaviour often failed to maximize reward or minimize uncertainty.

Energy reserves and metabolic expenditures of monarch butterflies overwintering in southern California

Abstract. 1. Energetic expenditure and predicted requirements for overwintering metabolism were determined for monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus L.) in southern California.

Nectarivore foraging ecology: rewards differing in sugar types

Abstract. 1 Honey bees, visiting artificial flower patches, were used as a model system to study the effects of sugar type (sucrose, glucose, fructose, and mixed monosaccharide), caloric reward, and floral colour on nectarivore foraging behaviour. Observed behaviour was compared to the predictions of various (sometimes contradictory) foraging models. 2 Bees drank indiscriminately from flowers in patches with a blue‐white flower dimorphism when caloric values of rewards were equal (e.g. 1M sucrose in both colours; 1 M sucrose versus 2 M monosaccharide of either type), but when nectar caloric rewards were unequal, they switched to the flower colour with the calorically greater reward. 3 In yellow‐blue dimorphic flower patches, on the other hand, bees did not maximize caloric reward. Rather, bees were individually constant, some to blue, others to yellow, regardless of the sugar types or energy content of the rewards provided in the two flower morphs. 4 The results suggest that optimal foraging theory (maximization of net caloric gain per unit time) is a robust predictor of behaviour with regard to the sugar types common to nectars; such optimal foraging is, however, limited by a superstructure of individual constancy.

Do Honey Bees have a Language

Von Frisch and later adherents of the theory that honey bees communicate by means of an elaborate dance are challenged by controlled experiments which show that their data can be explained in terms of olfactory cues.

An Analysis of the Waggle Dance and Recruitment in Honey Bees

T E honey-bee waggle dance (Apis mellifera L.) has become one of the most extensively studied behavioral patterns among animals. During this dance within the colony certain signals apparently pass between a successful forager and a potential recruit bee. These signals contain information about direction, distance, odor, and, possibly, richness of a food source remote from the hive. Some of the evidence reported to date includes the following: (1) The direction a dancing bee heads on the vertical comb while waggling its abdomen is well correlated with the direction it has traveled on its way from the hive to the nectar source (von Frisch, 1946). (2) The length of

Can honey bees change foraging patterns

Abstract. 1. Foraging patterns were studied using honey bees on artificial flower patches to determine if given individuals could change behaviours under differing conditions.

Ethological Isolation of Plants 2. Odour Selection By Honeybees

SummaryThe behaviour of honeybees (Apis mellifera) foraging in a patch of artificial flowers was studied experimentally with colour and odour as manipulated variables. Honeybees associated food with colour and/or odour and established individually constant foraging patterns. In a patch of colour-dimorphic flowers some bees were constant to yellow and some to blue flowers when all flowers provided clove-scented rewards. The colour-constancy of individual bees was not altered when the scent of all rewards was changed to peppermint. However, when the scent of only one colour morph was changed, some bees remained constant to colour, whereas others switched colour attachment and remained constant to odour. In a patch of uniformly coloured but odour-dimorphic flowers some bees were constant to peppermint-scented and some were constant to cinnamon-scented flowers. A change in the colour of all flowers did not reduce the level of odour-constant foraging. Individual constancy to either colour or to odour can be su...