In this section we will discuss about Bees: food findings, predators; prey defence; orientation and migration; navigation and homing; Animal relationships; communications; aggregation; courtship; parental behaviour; coloration; and breeding systems.

A. Life inside a colony:

Bees are one of the most successful, ecological valient and economical embibe among insects. Although most bees are solitary or subsocial, the family Apidae contains three distinct groups that exhibit eusocial behavior:  these are commonly known as stingless bees, bumble bees, and honey bees.

1. Bumble bees are large, fuzzy bees that typically nest in thick tufts of grass or in shallow underground  cavities (e.g. old rodent burrows). Bumble bee colonies have a relatively primitive social structure.  They rarely contain more than few hundred workers and, other than size, there is usually little or no physical distinction between a queen and her workers.  Caste determination appears to be based on food supply and the queen’s aggressive behavior.  Bumble bees have no system for communicating information about food location to other members of the hive.  Novice bees evidently learn to forage efficiently through a process of “trial and error” (https://genent.cals.ncsu.edu/bug-bytes/social-insects/social-bees/)

2. Stingless bees: They are called “stingless bees” because the sting is reduced in size and rarely used for defense.  These bees often nest in hollow trees or rock crevices.  They collect nectar and pollen from flowers and store honey in large egg-shaped pots made of cerumen, a mixture of beeswax and plant resin.  The honey

pots are usually arranged in an irregular perimeter around a central brood comb that is constructed in horizontal layers.

There is a wide range of social organization and communication among the species of stingless bees.  Some produce low-frequency sound vibrations to alert nestmates to a new nectar source, others mark vegetation with an odor trail for recruits to follow, and still others enlist a group of foragers and guide them back to the food source.  In tropical habitats, stingless bees have co-evolved with flowering plants since the Cretaceous period and these bees are now essential as pollinators for many native plants.  Conservation efforts are needed to protect both the plants and the bees from habitat destruction.

3. Honey bees are native to Europe, Asia, and Africa.  These bees usually nest above ground, often inside hollow trees.  They construct vertical wax combs with individual hexagonal cells for storing honey and rearing brood.  Each hive is “ruled” by a single queen whose only job is to lay eggs.  Workers are adult females — daughters of the queen.  They perform all housekeeping chores within the hive, search for nectar and pollen, produce wax and honey, feed the young and protect the hive against enemies.  Adult workers live for about six weeks (during the summer) but queens may last for several years.  During cold winters, the bees cluster together, feeding on stored food reserves and sharing their body heat.

B. Food findings, Orientation, Navigation, and homing in Honey bees:

Navigation in Honey bees

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(03)00836-4.pdf

C. Communications

All animals have unique ways of communicating with each other. Some use body language and eye contact, while others have vocal patterns.

Honey bees have two primary methods of talking to one another: movement and odor. Bees use these behaviors, such as the famous “waggle” dance, to send messages throughout the colony, locate a nearby food source, and communicate other information.

How Bees See Flowers

Honey bees use all their senses to communicate and find the best flowers. Before relaying information to other bees in the colony, they first need to lay their eyes on the right flower—but how?

Honey bees see colors like most insects, but they can’t discriminate reds very well. For them, a perfectly red flower will appear black. However, honey bees see ultraviolet rays that humans can’t. In fact, flowers that appear to have uniform colors in the human eye may be marked with ultraviolet lines and patterns that point bees toward where the nectar or pollen is concentrated.

This speeds up the process of gathering food from flowers and returning to the hive, where other bees can start collecting them.

Touch

The easiest form of honey bee communication is through touch. Bees touch each other’s antennae to identify their fellow bee and communicate during waggle dance. When a bee uses its antennae to touch an object, it may stick out its tongue to taste it.

Meanwhile, they use their feet to measure the size of comb cells, which is important in creating a flawless-looking honeycomb grid. This mode of communication is also why bees are particular about keeping their antennae clean.

Dance Language

When a honey bee has a successful foraging trip, it will return to the hive with valuable information about food sources, a safe drinking hole, or other knowledge about the surrounding area.

The worker bees dance to communicate this information. The most well-known waggle dance has to do with locating food sources. When a worker bee dances for its fellow workers, it uses certain movements and angles its body in a specific pattern to tell the others where it found nectar- and pollen-rich flowers.

Round Dance

There are two main food dances. The first, called a “round” dance, concerns nearby food sources within about 50 meters of the hive.

Dancing bees will move in a series of narrow circles to let the other workers know the direction of the food. Then it turns around and walks in the opposite direction in the same circle, repeating the movement many times. The honey bee can also include a little waggle when turning around, the duration of which determines the quality of the flower patch.

Waggle Dance

Honey bees perform a waggle dance in a figure-eight pattern for a food source further away from the hive. In 1940, Karl von Frisch discovered and named this special bee movement, which helps honey bees communicate the location of food and nectar.

The waggle dance involves vibrating and buzzing with its wings. The intensity of the waggle, interpreted by the bee’s abdomen, indicates just how far the food source is. The honey bee also angles its body in relation to the sun to point toward the food source.

Since multiple bees arrive and relay their discoveries, the hive then “votes” on the most viable site through the most number of bees joining the waggle dance and how intense it gets. The hive will only select a new hive site when the bees create a unanimous decision.

Odor Cues or Pheromones

Part of understanding how honey bees communicate is learning how pheromones work. Pheromones are chemical substances that bees produce to signal to the rest of the colony.

Bumblebees, in particular, secrete pheromones instead of dancing to relay their findings to other bees.

There are many kinds of pheromones that elicit several different responses. The first is an alert pheromone that bees use to communicate a nearby threat.

Queen bees also produce special pheromones to help control the population. For example, if she releases a pheromone that tells the others she’s alive and healthy, it encourages the rest of the colony to stay productive for the hive.

In the case of bumblebees, they do a series of runs while fanning their wings to signal that they have found an abundant food source. The fanning emits scents from the place they returned from, exciting other workers and urging them to follow the trail.

This method may not be as thorough as the round or waggle dance, which tells the exact location of the flower, but it works as it determines that a good flower is present nearby.

Vibration and Sound

Solitary bees, those that don’t live in a hive, have other means of communication. Since they don’t need to communicate with other bees like what happens in a colony, they use vibrations and sounds instead. They use these methods to scare off predators or signal potential mates. Other forms of communication include the following:

• Female bees create buzzing vibrations to lead males into their underground tunnels.
• Male bees create a faint buzz during mating season, increasing females’ receptivity.
• Bees create a collective buzz to inhibit others from moving in case of danger.
• They buzz loudly when predators or people come too close to their nest.

Talking to People

Honey bees communicate with people through their buzzing, which depends on their mood. For instance, when they feel threatened or distressed, they tend to buzz with increasing intensity and volume. On the other hand, they are quieter when calm.

The bees’ buzzing sound is an important cue for beekeepers, especially during hive inspections or harvesting for honey. If bees sound calm, you know it’s safe to proceed. But if they sound loud or angry, something could go wrong if you continue to disturb the hive, and you’re likely to get stung.

Stinging is another way bees communicate with people. If you don’t recognize the warning through their buzzing, they sting you, resulting in a female honey bee dying after the sting. But if you heed the warning and leave the hive, honey bees won’t chase you as they know the danger is gone.

D. Prey defense: To prevent a potential attack on their hive, giant honeybees have created a tough defense mechanism. They can quickly mobilize a large group of stinging guards that will fly after and attack potential predators. They can also heat their abdomens to more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit. This works to fend off smaller predators, such as wasps, which die at these temperatures. Several bees surround a smaller predator, like a wasp, heating it up until it dies.

Queen sometimes also releases an “Alarm Pheromone” to mobilize the bees in case a situation arises.

The Honeybee Shimmer

To answer their question, scientists in Nepal studied the behavior of the giant honeybee. They used video cameras to record two different hives. They wanted to see what was happening in and around the hives.

When watching the videos, scientists noticed an interesting behavior. Dozens of honeybees would sit in a hive and all flip their abdomens up in the air at the same time. Each flip lasted less than a second. This made the hive look like it was shimmering, or moving in a way similar to people doing “the wave” at a football game. But why would they do this?

Scientists wondered whether this was a behavior that the giant honeybee used to keep predators away. To study this, they recorded if a hornet was present when the shimmering occurred. If a hornet was present, the scientists also looked at how fast the hornet was moving toward the hive.

Overall, the videos showed that the shimmering behavior happened whether or not a hornet was present. However, the number of bees performing the behavior was very different in each context.

If a hornet was not present, only a few bees would perform the shimmer. But if a hornet was nearby, almost all the bees in the hive would show the behavior. The scientists also found that if the hornet was flying more quickly than usual at the hive, more bees would shimmer more often.

E. Mating in Honey bees:

When a virgin queen flies to a site where thousands of male honey bees may be waiting, she mates with several males in flight. A male drone will mount the queen and insert his endophallus, ejaculating semen. After ejaculation, a male honey bee pulls away from the queen, though his endophallus is ripped from his body, remaining attached to the newly fertilized queen.

The next male honey bee to mate with the queen will remove the previous endophallus and eventually lose his own after ejaculation. Male honey bees are only able to mate seven to 10 times during a mating flight, and after mating, a drone dies quickly, as his abdomen rips open when his endophallus is removed. Even drones that survive the mating flight are ejected from their nests, as they have served their sole purpose by mating.

Virgin queens mate early in their lives and only attend one mating flight. After several matings during this flight, a queen stores up to 100 million sperm within her oviducts. However, only five to six million are stored within the queen’s spermatheca. The queen uses only a few of these sperm at a time in order to fertilize eggs throughout her life. If a queen runs out of sperm in her lifetime, new generations of queens will mate and produce their own colonies.