Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
patch, however, will return, and they too will recruit additional foragers if they found it
to be profitable. You can see that this communication allows a colony to exploit many
patches simultaneously, and that better, more rewarding patches will be highly recruited
whereas smaller or less rewarding patches will be abandoned.
Metamorphosis
Honey bees undergo what entomologists call complete metamorphosis. Complete
metamorphosis describes the maturation of an insect from egg to adult. Because
insects have hard exoskeletons, they cannot increase their size or the number of
internal organs at will, so they produce a skin, grow into it, shed that skin, and pro-
duce a larger one. They will do this several times until they are as large as they
can grow. Each of these stages is called an
instar
. Honey bees have five instars.
In the last instar they cease feeding and produce a thin, silklike cocoon that covers
the body. House bees, cued to the change when a larva quits eating, cover the cell
with a mixture of both new and used wax. In twelve days, the transformation is
complete, and a new adult pushes and chews her way free of her youthful confines.
Her metamorphosis is complete.
(1) An egg is pictured standing on end, held there by glue used just for this purpose.
In the cell to the right of the one containing the egg is a first instar larva, already
floating in royal jelly fed to it by house bees.
(2) Larvae grow rapidly, going through five instars in six days. Here are two differ-
ent instars (development stages between molts).
(3) When the larvae are ready to pupate, they stand upright in the cell, stop eating,
void their digestive systems into the bottom of the cell, and prepare to spin their
