Observations on the Flight and Length of Life of Drone Bees.

Howell, D. E.; Usinger, Robert L.

doi:10.1093/aesa/26.2.239

Cited by 51 publications

(29 citation statements)

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“…The average flight initiation time of our drones is in relatively good agreement with previous records from different times (Howell & Usinger 1933) and places (Drescher 1969). Drone flight initiation in this study also occurred over a very narrow window of time (>90% of the drones initiated flight within 5 days) and showed a lower genetic variance component (r 2 values) compared with that of workers (Rueppell et al 2004).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Male behavioural maturation rate responds to selection on pollen hoarding in honeybees

2006

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Division of labour in social insect colonies relies on behavioural functional differentiation (specialization) of individuals with similar genomes. However, individual behavioural traits do not evolve independently of each other (behavioural syndromes). A prime example is the suite of behavioural differences in honeybee workers that has evolved in response to bidirectional selection on pollen hoarding of honeybee colonies (pollen-hoarding syndrome). More generally, these differences reflect functional differentiation between nectar and pollen foragers. We demonstrate here that this pollen-hoarding syndrome extends to drones. Similar to what has been shown in workers, drones from the high-pollen-hoarding strain had a higher locomotion activity after emergence, and they initiated flight earlier than did males derived from the low-pollen-hoarding strain, with hybrids intermediate. However, these two behavioural traits were unlinked at the individual level. We also found that social environment (the colony) affects the age at which drones initiate flight. The indirect selection responses of male behaviour suggest that male and worker evolution are not independent and may constrain each other's evolution. Furthermore, we identified three distinct peaks in the probability of flight initiation over the course of the experiment and a decreased phenotypic variability in the 'hybrid' males, contrary to quantitative genetic expectations.Social insects owe much of their evolutionary success to the coordinated action of behaviourally specialized members of their colonies (Oster & Wilson 1978; Winston 1987;Hölldobler & Wilson 1990). Division of labour is a hallmark of social evolution (Beshers & Fewell 2001), and among honeybee workers, it is mainly determined by age and genetic effects (Winston 1987). To promote individual specialization, the response thresholds to different task stimuli should vary independently among individuals (Beshers & Fewell 2001). This seems not to be the case: honeybees show well-established behavioural differences among races that extend to multiple behavioural phenotypes, as well as to morphology and life history (Winston 1987). Similar multiple behavioural phenotypes in honeybees are also correlated at the individual level (Page & Erber 2002;Pankiw 2003;Scheiner et al. 2004), indicating their evolution as behavioural syndromes (array of correlated behavioural characteristics: Sih et al. 2004). Linked sets of behavioural traits may have arisen through adaptation in certain contexts (Amdam et al. 2004), but the correlation among behavioural traits may constrain the division of labour in social insects, and behavioural optimization in general (Price & Langen 1992;Sih et al. 2004 One of the best-studied examples of behavioural syndromes in insects is the behavioural differentiation among workers of two strains of honeybees that have been bidirectionally selected over multiple generations for different amounts of pollen stored in their nests . Many different aspects of foraging behaviour Wadd...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Male behavioural maturation rate responds to selection on pollen hoarding in honeybees

2006

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“…So far, learning flights have not been studied in male insects. Some observations suggest that honeybee drones initially tend to perform short flights at the hive prior to mating flights, which could well be learning flights (Howell and Usinger, 1933;Witherell, 1971). Here, we first confirm earlier observations (Hempel de Ibarra et al, 2009), that male bumblebees depart directly from the nest without looking back, even though they have fed there.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Male bumblebees perform learning flights on leaving a flower but not when leaving their nest

Robert

Frasnelli

Collett

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Female bees and wasps demonstrate, through their performance of elaborate learning flights, when and where they memorise features of a significant site. An important feature of these flights is that the insects look back to fixate the site that they are leaving. Females, which forage for nectar and pollen and return with it to the nest, execute learning flights on their initial departure from both their nest and newly discovered flowers. To our knowledge, these flights have so far only been studied in females. Here, we describe and analyse putative learning flights observed in male bumblebees Bombus terrestris L. Once male bumblebees are mature, they leave their nest for good and fend for themselves. We show that, unlike female foragers, males always fly directly away from their nest, without looking back, in keeping with their indifference to their natal nest. In contrast, after males have drunk from artificial flowers, their flights on first leaving the flowers resemble the learning flights of females, particularly in their fixation of the flowers. These differences in the occurrence of female and male learning flights seem to match the diverse needs of the two sexes to learn about disparate, ecologically relevant places in their surroundings.

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“…The (H OWELL and U SINGER , 1933 ;L AVREKHIN , 1960 ;R UTTNER , 1966 ;BoL'sHAKOVA, 1978) however T ABER (1964) reported flights of almost two hours earlier in studies conducted early in the drone season. (3) Temperature, light intensity, w:ndspee!…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(3) Temperature, light intensity, w:ndspee! ', cloudiness, and possibly humidity and barometric pressure, influence the time of day that drones fly (M IKHAILOV , 1928 ;H OWELL and U SINGER , 1933 ;D RESCHER , 1969 ;T UCHASHVILI , 1969 , ;B OL ' SHAKOVA , 1978 ;V ERBEEK and D RESCHER , 1984 Drones were marked in order to identify age and colony of origin. Two days before emergence, the drone comb and one frame of young bees and unsealed larvae were placed above a queen excluder over the brood chamber of each hive.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variation in Drone Mating Flight Times Among Commercial Honey Bee Stocks

Rowell¹,

Taylor²,

Locke³

1986

Apidologie

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SUMMARYVariation was measured among and within commercial honey bee stocks in the time of day that drones fly. Ten commercial stocks, representing three honey bee races and one racial hybrid, were surveyed. Results indicate that substantial variation existed among the 45 colonies. Significant differences among mean departure times were obtained on 16 out of 20 observation days. Significant differences in departure times were observed among colonies of different races but were also observed among colonies of the same race, and even among colonies of the same commercial stock.No one race or commercial stock could be described as early-or late-flying.Differences of 30 minutes or more in mean departure times occurred over a wide range of temperatures, light intensities, windspeeds, and cloud conditions. Mean departure times of drones were significantly correlated with daily temperature means (r = .626, P < .05). Departure time was not significantly correlated with the age of drones (r = -.027, P > .05) ; however duration of flight activity (as measured by the magnitude of within-colony variances) increased slightly with drone age (r = .174, P < .05).

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Observations on the Flight and Length of Life of Drone Bees.

Cited by 51 publications

References 0 publications

Male behavioural maturation rate responds to selection on pollen hoarding in honeybees

Male behavioural maturation rate responds to selection on pollen hoarding in honeybees

Male bumblebees perform learning flights on leaving a flower but not when leaving their nest

Variation in Drone Mating Flight Times Among Commercial Honey Bee Stocks

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