Exploratory behaviour of honeybees during orientation flights

Degen, Jacqueline; Kirbach, Andreas; Reiter, Lutz; Lehmann, Konstantin; Norton, Philipp; Storms, Mona; Koblofsky, Miriam; Winter, Sarah; Georgieva, Petya B.; Nguyen, Hai; Chamkhi, Hayfe; Greggers, Uwe; Menzel, Randolf

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2014.12.030

Cited by 73 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…These individuals could be considered as elite foragers or scout individuals such as in bees characterized by a strong explorative capacity (Degen et al., 2015; Grüter, Leadbeater, & Ratnieks, 2010). This was already described in vespids (Roberson, Nordheim, & Jeanne, 2003): They observed a bimodal repartition of the workers of Vespula germanica , few of them making disproportionate number of trips.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Activity rhythm and action range of workers of the invasive hornet predator of honeybees Vespa velutina, measured by radio frequency identification tags

Poidatz

Monceau

Bonnard

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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In social insects, the activity rhythm of foragers and their action range determinate the activity of the colony. In vespids, which are mostly predators, the foraging range of workers determines their maximum predation pressure round the nest. One of these species, Vespa velutina, a recently invasive species introduced into Europe, exerts a strong predation on honeybees at the hive. Therefore, the definition of its activity rhythm and spatial range of predation is of primary importance. Using radio frequency identification tags (RFID), two experiments were carried out to (a) determine their return ability (called homing) in releasing 318 individuals at different distance from their colony and (b) monitor their foraging activity rhythm and the duration of their flights based on 71 individuals followed 24 hr/24 during 2 months. The homing ability of V. velutina was evaluated to be up to 5,000 m and was not affected by the cardinal orientation of release point. The lag time to return to the nest increased with the distance of release. Most of the flight activity took place between 07:00 a.m. and 08:00 p.m., hornets doing principally short flights of less than an hour. Foraging range was thus estimated ca. 1,000 m around the nest. This study of V. velutina assisted by RFID tags provides for the first time a baseline for its potential foraging distance that increase our knowledge of this species to (a) refine more accurately models for risk assessment and (b) define security perimeter for early detection of predation on invasion front.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Activity rhythm and action range of workers of the invasive hornet predator of honeybees Vespa velutina, measured by radio frequency identification tags

Poidatz

Monceau

Bonnard

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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“…This distinction between the learning and foraging phase is not as clear in bumblebees as it is in honeybees and ants, because the former occasionally bring home pollen after their first trip outside the nest (Hempel de Ibarra et al, 2009;Osborne et al, 2013). With increasing experience, the bees' maximal range, distance traveled, area covered and ground speed increase significantly (honeybees: Capaldi et al, 2000;Degen et al, 2015;bumblebees: Hempel de Ibarra et al, 2009). Desert ants (C. bicolor) also stay longer outside the nest with more experience.…”

Section: Cataglyphis Fortis Exhibits a Characteristic Ontogeny Of Leamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, only very few studies have specifically described the ontogeny from the start of learning walks or flights at the beginning of the forager's career to the foraging trips of experienced foragers (desert ants: Wehner et al, 2004;honeybees: Capaldi et al, 2000;Degen et al, 2015;bumblebees: Osborne et al, 2013). The first learning walks and flights all share some common features: when leaving the nest for the first time, the animals meander around the nest entrance including circular movements or rotations in their trajectories.…”

Section: Cataglyphis Fortis Exhibits a Characteristic Ontogeny Of Leamentioning

confidence: 99%

Ontogeny of learning walks and the acquisition of landmark information in desert ants,Cataglyphis fortis

Fleischmann

Christian

Müller

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

131

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At the beginning of their foraging lives, desert ants (Cataglyphis fortis) are for the first time exposed to the visual world within which they henceforth must accomplish their navigational tasks. Their habitat, North African salt pans, is barren, and the nest entrance, a tiny hole in the ground, is almost invisible. Although natural landmarks are scarce and the ants mainly depend on path integration for returning to the starting point, they can also learn and use landmarks successfully to navigate through their largely featureless habitat. Here, we studied how the ants acquire this information at the beginning of their outdoor lives within a nest-surrounding array of three artificial black cylinders. Individually marked 'newcomers' exhibit a characteristic sequence of learning walks. The meandering learning walks covering all directions of the compass first occur only within a few centimeters of the nest entrance, but then increasingly widen, until after three to seven learning walks, foraging starts. When displaced to a distant test field in which an identical array of landmarks has been installed, the ants shift their search density peaks more closely to the fictive goal position, the more learning walks they have performed. These results suggest that learning of a visual landmark panorama around a goal is a gradual rather than an instantaneous process.

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“…Bees perform two forms of exploratory orientation flights: (1) short-range orientation flights that concentrate on the exploration of the hive's immediate surroundings and (2) long-range orientation flights that usually lead into one narrow sector of the landscape because the outbound and inbound components of the flight are quite close to each other [11]. Furthermore, consecutive long-range orientation flights are directed toward sectors of the environment that overlap only partly or not at all, resulting in effective exploration of novel sectors around the hive.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bees perform short-range and long-range orientations flights. Short-range flights are performed in the immediate surroundings of the hive and occur more frequently under unfavorable weather conditions, whereas long-range flights lead the bees into different sectors of the surrounding environment [11]. Applying harmonic radar technology for flight tracking, we address the question of whether bees learn landscape features during their first shortrange or long-range orientation flight.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%