Steven M. Buco

Intra-colonial foraging specialism by honey bees (Apis mellifera) (Hymenoptera:Apidae)

SummaryColonies of honey bees with two identifiable subfamilies were established. Returning foragers were captured and killed at two different sampling times. The mean volume and per cent soluble solids of crop contents were determined for each subfamily, as was the mean weight of the pollen pellets. No significant differences in nectar volume or concentration were detected between subfamilies within colonies. However, in a few colonies, significant subfamily by sampling-time interactions were present, suggesting that in these colonies subfamilies differed in their nectar and pollen collecting behavior at different times of day. The plant genera worked by pollen foragers were also determined. In four of six colonies, bees of different subfamilies were found to be majoring on different plant species (Fig. 1). Implications of this intra-colonial variance in foraging behavior for colony fitness are discussed.

Honey bees dance with their super-sister

Abstract Four colonies of honey bees, Apis mellifera , each composed of two subfamilies were separately placed in a screen cage. Bees of each subfamily were found at different frequencies on a pollen feeder, a sucrose feeder and on the roof of the cage, indicating subfamilial genetic variance for foraging preferences. The colonies were then placed in observation hives, and communication dances were observed. The type (pollen or no pollen) and subfamily of dancers and the subfamily of recruits were recorded. Subfamilial variance for nectar or pollen preference and propensity to dance were observed in every case. There was a strong tendency for recruits to follow dances performed by a member of their own subfamily, indicating subfamily recognition. However, at least some of this positive assortment was due to a complex interaction of genotypic differences among subfamilies in their foraging preferences and tendencies to dance.

Subfamily recognition and task specialisation in honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) (Hymenoptera : Apidae)

A honey bee (Apis mellifera) queen mates with about ten haploid drones, thus producing colonies composed of about ten subfamilies of super-sisters. An increasing but controversial body of literature supports the views that: (1) Members of each subfamily within a colony can recognise each other, and distinguish supersisters from half-sisters. (2) Members of each subfamily use this recognition information and increase the reproductive fitness of their own subfamily at the expense of half-sisters through behaviour termed nepotism. A mathematical model is developed that shows that task specialisation by subfamilies, and bees that repeatedly undertake the behaviour within subfamilies, can influence the numbers of interactions among super-sisters, relative to the numbers of interactions between half-sisters. The model is then evaluated using a data set pertaining to trophallaxis behaviour in a two-subfamily colony. It is concluded that with this data set, task specialisation and subfamily recognition were indeed confounded, suggesting that the apparent subfamily recognition could easily have been an artefact of task specialisation.

Honey bee morphometrics: linearity of variables with respect to body size and classification tested with European worker bees reared by varying ratios of nurse bees

SUMMARYThe effects of nutritional stress on body size of worker honey bees and their morphometrics were examined, and morphometrics of stressed bees were compared with the morphometrics of large reference populations of European and Africanized honey bees. Workers from European queens (4 commercial queens from California plus 2 open stock queens and 2 feral queens from Louisiana) were reared with 4 ratios of nurse bees:eggs: 0.5:1,1:1, 5:1, and 100:1. Measurements of 25 morphometric variables were taken from each of 32 samples of usually ten bees per sample. Raw measurements of stressed bees were analysed separately by analysis of variance and multiple range tests. The treatments resulted in different phenotypes irrespective of the queen or her geographic origin. Workers reared at ratios of 0.5:1,1:1 and 5:1 were consistently smaller than workers reared at 100:1. Based on the size of the workers reared at 0.5:1, the initial ratio was apparently altered by the nurse bees, who probably destroyed eggs or lar...