Consensus building in giant Asian honeybee, Apis dorsata, swarms on the move

Makinson, James C.; Schaerf, Timothy M.; Rattanawannee, Atsalek; Oldroyd, Benjamin P.; Beekman, Madeleine

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2014.04.029

Cited by 11 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…To create artificial swarms we located colonies around the campus of Mae Fah Luang University, caged the adult workers together with their queen, and fed them ad libitum for 2 days, see Makinson et al (2014). Three swarms (labelled swarms 1, 2 and 3) were released at one of two field sites.…”

Section: Study Site and Artificial Swarm Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both sites were environments surrounded by patches of secondary forest, and contained A. dorsata colony congregations nearby. See Makinson et al (2014) for more information on the field sites and how we created artificial swarms.…”

Section: Study Site and Artificial Swarm Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We released swarms onto a custom-made swarm board at night the day prior to the experiment see Makinson et al (2014). Video footage of swarm activity was recorded using a Sony HandyCam (Sony HDR-XR100).…”

Section: Releasing Swarms and Recording Swarm Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a recent study, we demonstrated that prior to taking to the air, artificially created swarms of A. dorsata reach a level of pre-flight consensus similar to that seen in A. florea swarms (Makinson et al 2014). In the swarms observed scouts focussed their dance activity on an arc that encompassed approximately 1/6 of all possible directions (i.e., 60 degrees) and then travelled close to the mean direction indicated by dances in the final 15 min before swarms took off.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet one of our swarms produced migration dances for distances in excess of 6000 m, suggesting this swarm decided to migrate instead of selecting a nest-site location nearby. In this study, we analyse the individual behaviour of scouts on the swarms studied by Makinson et al (2014) to identify the behavioural rules used by scouts to reach a preflight consensus.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How does a swarm of the giant Asian honeybee Apis dorsata reach consensus? A study of the individual behaviour of scout bees

et al. 2016

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The last few years have seen a renewed interest in the mechanisms behind nest-site selection in honeybees. Most studies have focused on the cavity-nesting honeybee Apis mellifera, but more recently studies have included the open-nesting A. florea. Amongst species comparisons are important if we want to understand how the process has been adapted over evolutionary time to suit the particular species' nest-site requirement. Here, we describe the behaviour of scout bees of the giant Asian honeybee A. dorsata on three artificially created swarms to determine the mechanisms used to collectively decide on a location to move to, either in the same environment (nest-site selection) or somewhere further afield (migration). In all swarms, scouts' dances converged on a general direction prior to lift-off and this direction corresponded to the direction that swarms flew. Scouts from one swarm danced for sites that were far away. These dances did not converge onto a specific distance, implying they were migration dances. Dances for different sites differed in the number of circuits per dance suggesting that A. dorsata scouts make an assessment of site quality. Similarly to A. florea, but in contrast to A. mellifera, A. dorsata scouts did not reduce dance duration after repeated returns from scouting flights. We found that many scouts that dance for a non-preferred location changed dance location during the decision-making process after following dances for the consensus direction. We conclude that the consensusbuilding process of A. dorsata swarms relies on the interaction of scout bees on the swarm.

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Section: Study Site and Artificial Swarm Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Study Site and Artificial Swarm Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Releasing Swarms and Recording Swarm Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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