The regulation of pollen foraging by honey bees: how foragers assess the colony's need for pollen (original) (raw)
Summary
The honey bee colony presents a challenging paradox. Like an organism, it functions as a coherent unit, carefully regulating its internal milieu. But the colony consists of thousands of loosely assembled individuals each functioning rather autonomously. How, then, does the colony acquire the necessary information to organize its work force? And how do individuals acquire information about specific colony needs, and thus know what tasks need be performed? I address these questions through experiments that analyze how honey bees acquire information about the colony's need for pollen and how they regulate its collection. The results demonstrate features of the colony's system for regulating pollen foraging: (1) Pollen foragers quickly acquire new information about the colony's need for pollen. (2) When colony pollen stores are supplemented, many pollen foragers respond by switching to nectar foraging or by remaining in the hive and ceasing to forage at all. (3) Pollen foragers do not need direct contact with pollen to sense the colony's change of state, nor do they use the odor of pollen as a cue to assess the colony's need for pollen. (4) Pollen foragers appear to obtain their information about colony pollen need indirectly from other bees in the hive. (5) The information takes the form of an inhibitory cue. The proposed mechanism for the regulation of pollen foraging involves a hierarchical system of information acquisition and a negative feedback loop. By taking advantage of the vast processing capacity of large numbers of individuals working in parallel, such a system of information acquisition and dissemination may be ideally suited to promote efficient regulation of labor within the colony. Although each individual relies on only limited, local information, the colony as a whole achieves a finely-tuned response to the changing conditions it experiences.
Access this article
Subscribe and save
- Starting from 10 chapters or articles per month
- Access and download chapters and articles from more than 300k books and 2,500 journals
- Cancel anytime View plans
Buy Now
Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.
Instant access to the full article PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
- Al-Tikrity WS, Benton AW, Hillman RC, Clarke WW Jr (1972) The relationship between the amount of unsealed brood in honeybee colonies and their pollen collection. J Apic Res 11:9–12
Google Scholar - Barker RJ (1971) The influence of food inside the hive on pollen collection by a honeybee colony. J Apic Res 10:23–26
Google Scholar - Brooks CM, Koizumi K (1974) The hypothalamus and control of integrative processes. In: Mounteastle VB (ed) Medical physiology. C.V. Mosby, St. Louis, pp 813–836
Google Scholar - Cale GH Jr (1968) Pollen gathering relationship to honey collection and egg-laying in honey bees. Am Bee J 108:8–9
Google Scholar - Cannon WB (1932) The wisdom of the body. WW Norton, New York
Google Scholar - Crailsheim K (1990) The protein balance of the honey bee worker. Apidologie 21:417–429
Google Scholar - Crailsheim K (1991) Interadult feeding of jelly in honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) colonies. J Comp Physiol B 161:55–60
Google Scholar - Crailsheim K, Stolberg E (1989) Influence of diet, age and colony condition upon intestinal proteolytic activity and size of the hypopharyngeal glands in the honeybee (Apis mellifera L.). J Insect Physiol 35:595–602
Google Scholar - Crailsheim K, Schneider LHW, Hrassnigg N, Bühlmann G, Brosch U, Gmeinbauer R, Schöffmann B (1992) Pollen consumption and utilization in worker honey bees (Apis mellifera carnica): dependence on individual age and function. J Insect Physiol 38:409–419
Google Scholar - Fewell JH, Winston ML (1992) Colony state and regulation of pollen foraging in the honey bee, Apis mellifera L. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 30:387–393
Google Scholar - Filmer RS (1932) Brood area and colony size as factors in activity of pollination units. J Econ Entomol 25:336–343
Google Scholar - Free JB (1967) Factors determining the collection of pollen by honeybee foragers. Anim Behav 15:134–144
Google Scholar - Free JB (1979) Managing honeybee colonies to enhance the pollen-gathering stimulus from brood pheromones. Applied Animal Ethology 5:173–178
Google Scholar - Free JB, Williams IH (1971) The effect of giving pollen and pollen supplements to honeybee colonies on the amount of food collected. J Apic Res 10: 87–90
Google Scholar - Hull DL (1980) Individuality and selection. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 11:311–332
Google Scholar - Jeanne RL (1986) The organization of work in Polybia occidentalis: cost and benefits of specialization in a social wasp. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 19:333–341
Google Scholar - Jeffree EF, Allen MD (1957) The annual cycle of pollen storage by honey bees. J Econ Entomol 50:211–212
Google Scholar - Lacre O van, Martens N (1971) Influence d'une diminution artificielle de la provision de proteines sur l'activite de collete de la colonic d'abeilles. Apidologie 2:197–204
Google Scholar - Lindauer M (1952) Ein Beitrag zur Frage der Arbeitsteilung im Bienenstaat. Z Vergl Physiol 34:299–345
Google Scholar - Lindauer M (1954) Temperaturregulierung and Wasserhaushalt im Bienenstaat. Z Vergl Physiol 36:391–432
Google Scholar - Lloyd JE (1983) Bioluminescence and communication in insects. Annu Rev Entomol 28:131–160
Google Scholar - Moeller FE (1972) Honey bee collection of corn pollen reduced by pollen feeding in hive. Am Bee J 112:210–212
Google Scholar - Moritz B, Crailsheim K (1987) Physiology of protein digestion in the midgut of the honeybee (apis mellifera L.). J Insect Physiol 12:923–931
Google Scholar - Mountcastle VB (1974) Medical physiology. C.V. Mosby, St. Louis
Google Scholar - Rosov SA (1944) Food consumption by bees. Bee World 25:94–95
Google Scholar - Seeley TD (1985) Honeybee ecology. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
Google Scholar - Seeley TD (1989a) The honey bee colony as a superorganism. Am Sci 77:546–553
Google Scholar - Seeley TD (1989b) Social foraging in honey bees: how nectar foragers assess their colony's nutritional status. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 24:181–199
Google Scholar - Sokal RR, Rohlf FJ (1981) Biometry, 2nd edn. Freeman, New York
Google Scholar - Sorensen AA, Busch TM, Vinson SB (1985) Control of food influx by temporal subcastes in the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 17:191–198
Google Scholar - Southwick EE (1991) The colony as a thermoregulating superorganism. In: Goodman LJ, Fisher RC (eds) The behaviour and physiology of bees. CAB International, Wallingford, UK
Google Scholar - Tschinkel WR (1988) Social control of egg-laying rate in queens of the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta. Physiol Entomol 13:327–350
Google Scholar - Visscher PK, Seeley TD (1982) Foraging strategy of honeybee colonies in a temperate deciduous forest. Ecology 63:1790–1801
Google Scholar - Wheeler WM (1928) The social insects: their origin and evolution. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co, London
Google Scholar - Wilson DS, Sober E (1989) Reviving the superorganism. J Theor Biol 136:337–356
Google Scholar - Winston M (1987) The biology of the honey bee. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Google Scholar
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
- Section of Neurobiology and Behavior, Mudd Hall, Cornell University Ithaca, 14853, New York, USA
Scott Camazine
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Camazine, S. The regulation of pollen foraging by honey bees: how foragers assess the colony's need for pollen.Behav Ecol Sociobiol 32, 265–272 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00166516
- Received: 25 May 1992
- Accepted: 19 December 1992
- Issue date: April 1993
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00166516