The Seasonal Cycle of Swarming in Honeybees

Fell, Richard D.; Ambrose, John T.; Burgett, D. M.; Jong, David De; Morse, Roger A.; Seeley, Thomas D.

doi:10.1080/00218839.1977.11099883

Cited by 52 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Table III summarizes the findings reported here for 2010-2016 and those reported previously (Seeley 1978(Seeley ) for 1974(Seeley -1977. The two sets of findings are strikingly similar even though they were made ca.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

“…Fall inspections were made after September 20, thus after the secondary swarming season. In the Ithaca area, 80% of swarms are produced between 15 May and 15 July and 20% between 15 August and 15 September (Fell et al 1977). Flying bees at a nest entrance are not proof of a live colony; they can be robbers or scouts examining a dead colony's nest.…”

Section: Inspecting Nest Sites and Statistical Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Life-history traits of wild honey bee colonies living in forests around Ithaca, NY, USA

Seeley

2017

Apidologie

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-Wild honey bee colonies-both truly wild (in trees and buildings) and simulated wild (in small hives)-were studied to determine their life-history traits, to see if these traits have changed now that these colonies are infested with Varroa destructor . Most colonies (97%) survive summers, but only 23% of founder (first-year) colonies and 84% of established colonies survive winters. Established colonies have a mean lifespan of 5-6 years and most (87%) have a queen turnover (probably by swarming) each summer. A population model shows that these life-history traits produce a stable population of colonies. Remarkably, the suite of colony life-history traits found in the 2010s (with V. destructor ) matches that found in the 1970s (without V. destructor ). It seems likely that the wild colonies living near Ithaca, NY, possess defenses against V. destructor that are not costly.Apis mellifera / life-history evolution / colony survival / deformed wing virus / Varroa destructor / wild honey bees

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

Section: Inspecting Nest Sites and Statistical Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life-history traits of wild honey bee colonies living in forests around Ithaca, NY, USA

Seeley

2017

Apidologie

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“…Natural swarms of A. mellifera can range from just over 2400 to 41 000 bees, with a mean size of approximately 11 800 bees [42]. There appears to be no correlation between the size of swarms and the volume of cavities that swarms settle in [43,44].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Do small swarms have an advantage when house hunting? The effect of swarm size on nest-site selection by Apis mellifera

Schaerf

Makinson

Myerscough

et al. 2013

J. R. Soc. Interface.

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Reproductive swarms of honeybees are faced with the problem of finding a good site to establish a new colony. We examined the potential effects of swarm size on the quality of nest-site choice through a combination of modelling and field experiments. We used an individual-based model to examine the effects of swarm size on decision accuracy under the assumption that the number of bees actively involved in the decision-making process (scouts) is an increasing function of swarm size. We found that the ability of a swarm to choose the best of two nest sites decreases as swarm size increases when there is some time-lag between discovering the sites, consistent with Janson & Beekman (Janson & Beekman 2007 Proceedings of European Conference on Complex Systems, pp. 204-211.). However, when simulated swarms were faced with a realistic problem of choosing between many nest sites discoverable at all times, larger swarms were more accurate in their decisions than smaller swarms owing to their ability to discover nest sites more rapidly. Our experimental fieldwork showed that large swarms invest a larger number of scouts into the decision-making process than smaller swarms. Preliminary analysis of waggle dances from experimental swarms also suggested that large swarms could indeed discover and advertise nest sites at a faster rate than small swarms.

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“…In contrast, nectar collection and storage are not partitioned in bumblebees, Bombus (Michener 1977), which have much smaller colonies, typically 100-400 workers (Free and Butler 1959). A second difference between bumblebees and honeybees is that honeybee colonies are founded by swarms of at least several thousand workers plus a queen (Fell et al 1977), whereas bumblebee colonies are founded by a single queen (Wilson 1971). Thus, honeybee colonies never pass through a small-population stage.…”

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confidence: 99%

Task Partitioning in Insect Societies. I. Effect of Colony Size on Queueing Delay and Colony Ergonomic Efficiency

Anderson¹,

Ratnieks²

1999

The American Naturalist

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The collection and handling of colony resources such as food, water, and nest construction material is often divided into subtasks in which the material is passed from one worker to another. This is known as task partitioning. When material is transferred directly from one individual to another, queueing delays frequently occur because individuals must sometimes wait for a transfer partner. A stochastic simulation model was written to study the effect of colony size on these delays. Queueing delay decreases roughly exponentially with colony size because stochastic fluctuations in the arrival of individuals are lower in larger colonies. These results support empirical studies of Polybia occidentalis and other theoretical studies of honeybees. The effect of the relative number of individuals in the two subtask groups was also studied. There is a unique optimal ratio of the number of workers associated with each of the subtasks that simultaneously minimizes mean queueing delay and maximizes colony nectar-processing rate. Deviations from this optimal ratio, for example, as a result of forager mortality or changes in nectar productivity that affect foraging trip duration, increase mean queueing delays greatly, especially in smaller colonies.

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The Seasonal Cycle of Swarming in Honeybees

Cited by 52 publications

References 2 publications

Life-history traits of wild honey bee colonies living in forests around Ithaca, NY, USA

Life-history traits of wild honey bee colonies living in forests around Ithaca, NY, USA

Do small swarms have an advantage when house hunting? The effect of swarm size on nest-site selection by Apis mellifera

Task Partitioning in Insect Societies. I. Effect of Colony Size on Queueing Delay and Colony Ergonomic Efficiency

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