Hygienic behavior in Melipona quadrifasciata anthidioides (Apidae, Meliponini)

Abstract

Hygienic behavior in stingless bees is a trait of workers that confers colony-level resistance against some brood diseases. Workers of hygienic colonies detect, uncap and remove dead or diseased brood from the nest cells. We examined the hygienic behavior in stingless bees (Melipona quadrifasciata anthidioides ) from freezekilled brood assay using liquid nitrogen. Responses were measured at 14 times (3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 72, 96, 120, 144, 168, 192, 216, 240 and 264 h after freeze-killing of the brood). Workers were estimated to remove on average 65% of larvae and 34% of dead pupae within 48 h of freezing. Workers removed dead brood rapidly after uncapping the cells. Strong colonies showed a greater removal of dead pupae, while the size of the population did not influence the removal of dead larvae. These findings report for the first time the hygienic behavior in M. q. anthidioides and confirm that workers have more difficulty removing pupae compared with larvae from the combs.generalized linear models / stingless bees / hygienic colonies / dead brood removal / freeze-killed brood

The payoffs and tradeoffs of hygienic behavior: A large-scale field study on a local population of honey bees

“…In agreement with previous research (e.g., Spivak and Reuter 1998;Fly et al 2014;Zakour and Bienefeld 2014;Danka et al 2016;de Jesus et al 2017;Scannapieco et al 2017), we have found that maternal colony phenotype has a significant effect on hygienic behavior, which emphasizes the potential of breeding for this trait in the local population. We also found a significant interaction between maternal phenotype and mating technique, indicating that artificially inseminated daughters preserve the maternal phenotype better than daughters of naturally-mated daughter queens.…”

Volatile Organic Compounds from Offspring of Stingless Bee Sacrificed in Hygienic Behavior Test

“…In the LN2 treatment, the percentage of larval removal (83.51 %) was significantly higher than that found for the pupal stage (49.44 %) (p < 0.05). In a previous study with this stingless bee species, the removal was 65 % of larvae and 34 % of dead pupae after freezing in liquid nitrogen, [48] similar to ours results, demonstrating the priority for removing larvae over pupae.…”