Thermographic recordings show that honeybees may receive nectar from foragers even during short trophallactic contacts

Farina, Walter M.; Wainselboim, Alejandro Javier

doi:10.1007/pl00001791

Cited by 24 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Our results suggest that the majority of the oral contacts that involved returning foragers did not involve effective transfers of food (Farina and Wainselboim, 2001; this study). This tendency was much more noticeable within the dancing context, since followers mainly performed short oral contacts.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 55%

“…When an oral contact involves transfer of food, a rapid advance of a heat front proceeding from the tip to the base of the receiver's proboscis is observed by thermography with a brief time-lapse (Farina and Wainselboim, 2001). From this observation we determined that these changes (increases) of the begging bee's proboscis temperature during an oral contact corresponded to an effective passage of solution.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The thermal behavior of bees involved in oral contacts was recorded on videotape for later analysis of the following variables: (i) the contact time, in s, defined as the total time that a begging bee's proboscis contacted the mandibles of the trained forager; and (ii) whether the proboscis temperature of the begging bee increased during the contact time with a trained forager. An effective passage of liquid was considered when the proboscis temperature of the begging bee increased at least 0.85 °C (range: 0.85-3.5 °C), which corresponded to the minimum distinguishable color change according to the above mentioned color scale (for details see Farina and Wainselboim, 2001). The infrared emissivity used was 0.95, a value that allowed measurement of absolute body surface temperature (i.e., 0.95 is the lower limit of the band emissivity for the honeybee thoracic cuticle; see Schmaranzer and Stabentheiner, 1988).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Farina, A.J. Wainselboim thermography as a non-invasive method for determining if an incoming nectar forager transferred food to a hive mate (Farina and Wainselboim, 2001). In this way it was possible to combine behavioral and thermographic recordings to analyze trophallactic behavior considering the informational context in which these interactions occurred.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Trophallaxis within the dancing context: a behavioral and thermographic analysis in honeybees (Apis mellifera)

Farina

Wainselboim

2005

Apidologie

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-Honeybee workers that follow a dancing bee within the hive may contact its mouthparts to receive a food sample. It is currently unknown which proportion of begging bees actually receive food samples via trophallaxis from a dancer. We combined behavioral and thermographic recordings to analyze trophallactic behavior considering the informational context in which these interactions occurred. Dance followers engaged in shorter oral contacts and achieved a lower proportion of effective receptions (26%) than non-followers (58%). These results show that oral contacts often occur between dancers and followers, but their brief duration suggests that followers may just probe the incoming nectar. However, short contacts might allow unemployed nectar foragers either to taste or smell (or both) the solution exposed between the dancer's mandibles, which may contribute to the acquisition of information involved in the decision to visit that food source.Apis mellifera / honeybee / trophallaxis / dance / thermography

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 55%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Trophallaxis within the dancing context: a behavioral and thermographic analysis in honeybees (Apis mellifera)

Farina

Wainselboim

2005

Apidologie

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“…We defined standing as the act of a bee remaining motionless for at least 5 s, and being begged for food/water as getting touched on the mouthparts by another bee's mouthparts for 2 s or less. We counted only contacts lasting 2 s or less because those lasting 3 s or longer are likely to involve transfer of food or water (Farina and Wainselboim, 2001) and we wanted to record instances in which a bee received a request for fluid but she did not respond by regurgitating fluid, probably because she had none. We distinguished begging and being begged for food/ water by noting which bee (the focal water collector or the bee interacting with her) extended her proboscis; the begging bee extends her tongue.…”

Section: Experiments 2: Water Collection Response To Hyperthermiamentioning

confidence: 99%

The behavioral regulation of thirst, water collection and water storage in honey bee colonies

Ostwald

Smith

Seeley

2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

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This study investigated how a honey bee colony develops and quenches its collective thirst when it experiences hyperthermia of its broodnest. We found that a colony must strongly boost its water intake because evaporative cooling is critical to relieving broodnest hyperthermia, and that it must rapidly boost its water intake because a colony maintains only a small water reserve. We also clarified how a colony's water collectors know when to spring into action -by sensing either more frequent requests for fluid or greater personal thirst, or both. Finally, we found that the behavioral flexibility of a colony's water collectors enables them not only to satisfy their colony's current water needs but also to buffer their colony against future extreme water stresses by storing water in their crops and in their combs.

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Multiple unloadings by nectar foragers in honey bees: a matter of information improvement or crop fullness?

Huang

Seeley

2003

Insectes Sociaux

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When a honey bee forager returns to her hive and unloads nectar, she sometimes transfers her entire load to one bee, but other times she makes a series of unloadings to several bees. One intriguing hypothesis for why foragers make multiple unloadings is the Information Improvement hypothesis: multiple unloadings improve a forager's estimate of the difficulty in finding a receiver bee, and thus of the allocation of labor between nectar collecting and nectar processing. In this paper, we discuss a possible weakness in the empirical evidence in support of the Information Improvement hypothesis. We also present a competing hypothesis, the Crop Fullness hypothesis: multiple unloadings arise from a mismatch between the amount of nectar a forager has to unload and the amount of nectar a receiver can imbibe. Finally, we test the two hypotheses by checking their predictions regarding the conditions under which multiple unloadings occur and which bee (forager or receiver) breaks off the first unloading when a forager makes multiple unloadings. We find that multiple unloadings are common only at times of high nectar influx and that most often it is the receiver, not the forager, who breaks off the first unloading. We argue that both of these findings are contradictory to the Information Improvement hypothesis but are consistent with the Crop Fullness hypothesis. Furthermore, we relate our findings to a recent theoretical study (Gregson et al., 2003) which shows, by means of a simulation model, that the level of multiple unloadings observed can be accounted for by a mismatch between the crop loads of foragers and the crop capacities of receiver bees. We combine our measurements with the Gregson et al. model to identify the rule used by receiver bees in deciding when to stop receiving more nectar. We conclude that receivers make this decision during the course of an unloading, not after completing an unloading. Finally, with this conclusion in hand, we test the Gregson et al. model by comparing predictions and observations on how full receivers are when they decide to break off an unloading. We find a remarkable agreement (prediction: 60 %, observation: 52 -59 %), in strong support of the model.

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Thermographic recordings show that honeybees may receive nectar from foragers even during short trophallactic contacts

Cited by 24 publications

References 10 publications

Trophallaxis within the dancing context: a behavioral and thermographic analysis in honeybees (Apis mellifera)

Trophallaxis within the dancing context: a behavioral and thermographic analysis in honeybees (Apis mellifera)

The behavioral regulation of thirst, water collection and water storage in honey bee colonies

Multiple unloadings by nectar foragers in honey bees: a matter of information improvement or crop fullness?

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