Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
R
C
PV
E
MG
Figure 2.8.
Diagram of the digestive tract of a honey bee. It is composed of
three chambers, the honey stomach, or crop (C), the midgut (MG), and the
rectum (R). h e proventricular valve (PV) sits between the crop and the midgut.
h e esophagus (E) links the mouth and the crop. Drawing by Adam Toi lski,
honeybee.drawwing.org.
main near the entrance of the colony or the dance l oor and collect the
nectar loads from the returning foragers. h ey then either deposit the
nectar in cells or distribute it to other bees.) h ey also pass some nectar
to bees that attend their dances, and these bees in turn share it with
others, and so on. h e incoming nectar is distributed and modulates
the response thresholds of bees throughout the nest. Mindy Nelson and
Tanya Pankiw set colonies in l ight cages and provided the cages with
sucrose-solution feeders. h ey changed the sucrose solutions in the dif-
ferent cages and then collected nonforaging young bees and tested
them for their response thresholds to sucrose solutions. h e young
bees' responses were modulated by the concentration of the sugar solu-
tion collected by the foragers. When the concentration was high, their
response thresholds were high. When the concentration was low, their
response thresholds were low. h ese results demonstrate that a colony
of bees “shares a common stomach” and that the bees in the hive have
the capability to track the quality and perhaps the quantity of the nec-
tar being collected in the i eld. h is is also another demonstration of
how all the bees in the colony are connected indirectly in a network
and are able to get information about the global state of the network.
