Bee++: An Object-Oriented, Agent-Based Simulator for Honey Bee Colonies

Abstract

We present a model and associated simulation package () to capture the natural dynamics of a honey bee colony in a spatially-explicit landscape, with temporally-variable, weather-dependent parameters. The simulation tracks bees of different ages and castes, food stores within the colony, pollen and nectar sources and the spatial position of individual foragers outside the hive. We track explicitly the intake of pesticides in individual bees and their ability to metabolize these toxins, such that the impact of sub-lethal doses of pesticides can be explored. Moreover, pathogen populations (in particular, Nosema apis, Nosema cerenae and Varroa mites) have been included in the model and may be introduced at any time or location. The ability to study interactions among pesticides, climate, biodiversity and pathogens in this predictive framework should prove useful to a wide range of researchers studying honey bee populations. To this end, the simulation package is written in open source, object-oriented code (C++) and can be easily modified by the user. Here, we demonstrate the use of the model by exploring the effects of sub-lethal pesticide exposure on the flight behaviour of foragers.

Social Buffering of Pesticides in Bumblebees: Agent-Based Modeling of the Effects of Colony Size and Neonicotinoid Exposure on Behavior Within Nests

“…Mechanistic models of behavior within bee colonies can consider complex impacts of pesticides and other stressors under different scenarios (Bryden et al, 2013;Laycock and Cresswell, 2013;Sponsler and Johnson, 2016;Cresswell, 2017;Henry et al, 2017). Models have been developed for populations of bumblebees (Sponsler and Johnson, 2016;Thorbek et al, 2016;Betti et al, 2017;Henry et al, 2017;Becher et al, 2018) with and without exposure to neonicotinoids.…”

Thermal efficiency extends distance and variety for honeybee foragers: analysis of the energetics of nectar collection and desiccation by Apis mellifera

“…(2) Direct energy equivalence. The value of the energy in the nectar is identical to that stored in the honey [26,30,33,39], or that conversion cost is not significant [16,34]. (3) Nectar not honey as stored energy.…”

Simulating Honey Bee Large‐Scale Colony Feeding Studies Using the BEEHAVE Model—Part II: Analysis of Overwintering Outcomes

“…In modeling approaches, all factors of a simulated system can be fully controlled, allowing for analysis of the impacts of isolated factors and their interactions with a system over time. Multiple honey bee colony models have been introduced with the aim of improving our understanding of the interplay of many processes and factors in this complex system (Becher et al 2013(Becher et al , 2014Khoury et al 2013;Betti et al 2017;Kuan et al 2018). In the present study, we used the mechanistic honey bee colony model BEEHAVE (Becher et al 2014) to systematically assess different factors impacting control colony conditions in LSCFSs.…”