Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
the nest asymmetrically with respect to age and location of bees. Bees that
are closer in age are more likely to engage in food exchange, and bees are
more likely to exchange food with others nearby. h e distribution of age
in the nest, with the younger bees located centrally and older bees situated
peripherally, sets up a centripetal l ow of food from the older bees at the
edges, including the foragers, to the younger bees in the center.
With the l ow of nectar in the hive comes the l ow of olfactory infor-
mation and changes in response thresholds to sugar. Sucrose-response
thresholds of hive bees are modulated by the concentration of sugar in
solutions collected by foragers. Higher concentrations of solutions re-
sult in lower sucrose responsiveness of hive bees. Bees learn the odors
of the foraging resources of the colony through associative processes
during trophalla xis (the sharing of food by mouth-to-mouth exchange).
Bees that have experienced interaction through food exchanges are
more likely to engage in subsequent interactions with each other, creat-
ing a nonrandom network of interactions based on prior experience.
h e example of nectar-l ow dynamics shows direct ef ects on informa-
tion l ow and the decision functions of worker honey bees in the network.
However, many, perhaps most, ef ects of the activities of bees are indirect,
as in the pollen-foraging example in Figure 2.2. In that case, returning
pollen foragers walk on the comb along the margins of the developing
brood and the stored pollen. h ey take a statistical sample of the brood
and stored pollen stimuli. h ey do not have complete information about
the current need and supply, so they are not connected to all pollen for-
agers as indirect inhibitors of pollen foraging or the young larvae who
are indirect releasers of pollen-foraging behavior—
K
does not equal
N
.
2.6 Summary Comments
h e “spirit of the hive” referred to by Maurice Maeterlinck is the mecha-
nisms through which coordinated activities can be performed by Charles
Darwin's “crowd of bees working in a dark hive.” h e main theme of this
chapter has been that the primary mechanism of social behavioral orga-
nization is the response of individual worker honey bees to their im-
mediate environment and the consequential change in the stimulus. I
