Bee behaviour module 6 Flashcards
(147 cards)
1 Define Polyethism
Functional specialization by caste (morphology) or by age in an insect colony leading to division of labour
- List the conditions that
cause variations in polethestic duties
- Shortage of pollen / stores
- Nosema
- Supercedure/swarming
- Genetic variation
- Cold / wet weather / winter
- Disturbance – eg hive manipulation
- Memory palace: Pole, silk flower, hawk, lamp, window, boards
- List glandular development by age and production
- 3 - hypophayngeal gland - brood food clear
- 3 - mandibular gland - brood food white + 10HDA
- 9 - wax gland - wax flakes (mainly 12-18)
- 9 - hypopharyngeal gland - sucrase and glucose oxidase
- 12 = max; 20 stops - sting gland - venom - Phospholipase A + others
- 12+ mandibular gland - 2-heptanone
- 14-21 days = at max - sting scent gland - isopentyl acetate among others
- Nasonov increases with age; 28 = max; geraniol and nerol, e-citral etc
- List worker duties between her emergence in April
until her death
- 1-3 days cleans cell + hive - excreta, larval moults, polish cells, debris, necrophrosis
- 3-6 feeds older larva
- 6-9 feeds younger larva
- 1-10 Tends queen (Seeley)
- 9-12 cap brood cells
- 10-18 days:
- receives nectar ripens nectar into honey,
- packs pollew
- makes wax, builds comb,
- ventilates, evaporates, controls temperature
- 18-21 days guard duty/defence
- 3-6 weeks foraging nectar, pollen, water and propolis until death
- List worker duties between her emergence in OCTOBER
until her death
- No income / forage
- Drastically less brood to feed and almost no hive duties
- External temp low, metabolic rate low, so food consumption low
- Focus is on heat conservation in cluster at 20-30C
- Keeping the colony warm, either through creating a denser cluster and/or shivering her dorsoventral muscles to generate metabolic heat
- Around Jan/Feb, as the queen starts laying again, raises temp 33-36C.
- Gradually pick up her duties, limited by the weather & availability of forage
- Orientation - describe the theory behind
‘move a colony less than 3 feet or more than 3 miles’
- Young bees take orientation flights noting local landmarks - bushes
- Successive flights get longer (half a mile)
- By foraging age, it knows local half mile really well
- Foraging bees will follow old routes home automatically
- Move hive -3’ / cut long grass / move landmarks: homecoming bees disorientated for a few hours until they adjust
- Move 3’+ and they return to old site and ‘wait’ for hive to appear
- Move -3 miles, forager may come across old flight paths and revert
- Move 3+ miles, = unlikely to cross old paths so reversion less likely
- Memory lost after about 2 weeks
2 Describe colony mating behaviour 1
- Workers bees do not mate
- Only queens and drones, and they do so on the wing
2 Drone mating - maturation
- Emerges after 24 days
- from colonies with 6000+ bees in April
- 14 days to mature while sperm finishes migrating to seminal vesicles
- Congregate on edges of frames feeding on honey
- Orientation flights followed by flights to DCA during warmest part of day
2 Drone mating
1 attraction
- Attracted to Q by
- Pher: Mandib (9-ODA) - upwind at 6m, downwide 30-100m
- Pher: Renner Baumann - 30cm
- Sight: sees open bursa copulatrix at 1m (8l ommatidia cf W5k/Q4k)
- Comet of D forms with strongest getting to her first
2 Drone mating - 2 act
- Clasps Q from behind with all legs
- Bends abdomen, everts his endophallus into bursa copulatrix with violent contraction
- Q cannot release it.
- Becomes ‘paralysed’, loses hold and swings backwards
- Carried along by the queen as semen is ejaculated into the median and lateral oviducts
- Endophallus ruptures as D falls away, drops to the ground and dies
- The bulb remains in bursa copulatrix - emits UV light - attracts more D
- Mucus from the drone’s mucus glands coagulates and forms a seal “mating sign”
- Next drone removes mating sign
02 mating
How many drones does a queen typically mate with
- 12-15
2 Q mating - 0 maturation
- Emerges after 16 days and eliminates rivals in cells/fights
- 1-4 remains in col feeding herself honey - no RJ and no court
- Exoskeleton hardens; weather permitting takes orientation flights
- Exocrine glands develop esp mandibular: 9-ODA for D attraction
- at 5 days, enough to attract D. Increases over 10 days
- After 5 days she is ready to take mating flights to DCA
- Workers ignore her at first
- When mature, ++ aggresive as she ages without mating (stale prevention)
- After 21 she cannot mate -> drone layer
- If due to inbreeding she produces diploid males, workers eat eggs - mechanism designed to limit drone numbers.
2 Q mating - 1 act
- Mating flights av 30 minutes. Yate: 20 April, 12 June.
- Between 12-4pm ideally at 20C +.
- Av 2-3km to DCA. At DCA attracts a comet of D.
- Q cannot release D once copulation starts.
- Mated on wing by several D, each removing the mating sign of the last
- Returns to the hive where workers remove last mating sign
- 2-3 mating flights (13-20D) until her spermatheca is full of sperm.
- Forces the sperm from lateral and median oviducts to her vagina
- 5.5-6m sperm enters spermatheca via spermathecal duct: chemotaxis migration - rest lost but all drones represented
- Workers attend her, feed her royal jelly and form a court
- 3-4 days later: eggs, maybe haphazardly before settling into gd pattern
- She never leaves the hive again, except to swarm.
- Drone - Describe a DCA 10
- Airspace 15-25m above ground where D congregate and fly around indep of Q(s)
- 100m from apiary
- Open/hilly ground sheltered from wind if poss
- Magnetic attraction? - magnetite in trophocytes in gut
- Mandib gland attracts D and Q
- Diameter 30-100m
- Attracts 12 to 10k drones
- from 5-6km radius (av 1km)
- Minimises inbreeding
- Mating height 10-40m av (can be less) inversely propotional to wind speed
03 Egg laying - 2 rate
What drives the egg laying rate?
- Rate of egg-laying driven by how much Queen is fed
- Thus an artificial flow (feeding mimics a nectar flow) can accelerate egg laying in spring
- Swarm prep - feeding drops off to prepare the queen for flying
- Nectar flow end
- Dearth – eg June gap, August gap
- Winter as nest temperature falls below 33-36C to 20-30C
03 egg laying - 3 brood pattern
Describe a good brood pattern
- Roughly spherical nest to make it easiler to keep warm in cluster
- Densely clustered concentric circles
- Placed in groups at the centre of the frame, but not nec of brood box
- Frames on edges of next tend to have less brood than central frames
- One egg per cell, placed upright and centred at the bottom of a cell
- Drone brood grouped on bottoms/sides of worker brood
- Some empty cells possibly to facilitate warming
- W shape of empty cells over wires
- Uses front legs to assess whether a cell sis W/D. Amputated leg tips -> haphazard laying
3 Egg laying - Describe a typical season’s laying pattern
- Jan/Feb egg laying, but may be earlier if the weather warm
- April: av 360 eggs/day as weather warms, pollen + nectar flow in
- April/colony 6000+ bees, lays D drone (unfert) eggs back/side of nest
- May, av 700 eggs/day as forage flows in quantity
- Won’t reach 1000-1500/day in nectar flow until yr 2.
- June gap - may slow down. Some strains continue in dearth (Mediterranean)
- Autumn, younger queen may continue laying later into year than older queens, maintaining egg laying after a nectar flow has ended
- Ivy forage Sep-Oct stimulates egg laying, dep on weather and forage
- Late autumn egg laying drops right back
- November/December, likely to be off-lay in colder areas of the UK
3 egg laying - 4
Why is a good brood pattern essential?
- In cold, the cluster can maintain the temperatures in the brood nest
- can’t if brood is spread out all over the place
- More efficient for nurse bees to work areas of brood of the same age
- Workers store pollen in an arc around the brood nest so nurse bees don’t have far to go to reprovision, with honey above the nest area
- Egg laying - why does a queen inspect cells before laying?
- To see if it is clean enough – she is very picky
- To see if it already contains an egg/larva
- To check the width – worker /drone cell
- Season var -
What is the impact of a swarm in Jun on honey harvest
- Depends on strain of bee, forage and weather
- The harvest will be impacted adversely because, effectively, at least a month of foraging has been lost.
- 60% of bees will have ghone with the old queen
- Of those that remain, some will have to come off foraging duties and revert to being nurse bees
- Meanwhile the queen will only start laying, at best, 20 days after emerging.
- Q=8 days to emerge, 4 days to mature, 4 days to mate (assuming perfect weather), 4 days to start laying, 21 days for new bees to start emerging.
- However, it is likely that the bees will be able to store enough to survive the winter as they have the whole of July with the blackberries to feed on.
- Seasonal var - what is the impact of month bees swarm
- A swarm in may is worth a load of hay.
- All ok for remaining bees
- but may lack drones to mate new Q so Q may fail next spring from lack of sperm
- A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon
- Temperatures more stable and drones mature.
- Plus plenty fo time for new hive to establish create stores for winter.
- A swarm in June is not worth a fly
- Too late in the year that the swarm lay down enough honey for winter.
- A swarm in August is worth a bale of sawdust
- A swarm in September is a swarm to remember
- Seasonal var

- Title: Av pop cycle over a typical year dep strain, forage, climate, weather
- Lowest adult point end Feb as winter bees die off
- Brood = adults twice that year
- Brood > adults Feb-April - critical period: brood risks being chilled as not enough adults to incubate
- Adults peak in June three weeks after brood peaks (when main flow has started and max foraging force req)
- Pop decreases rapidly as forager bees die off then slows w winter bees
- Pop max 40k-60k dep on fecunidity and strain of Q
- Pop builds in spring with flow (little stored)
- At max pop, they store large amounts for winter in a short time (less brood to care for)
- Reduced pop allows adequate reserves for winter
- Allow for local variations eg peaky graph
- Seasonal var pop 2

- The graph represents the amount of brood in a colony that issues a prime swarm at the end of May.
- x axis is the months of the year Jan to Dec
- Y axis is the amount of brood in 10,000 gradients.
- A Queen started to lay.
- B prime swarm issued.
- D New queen started to lay.
- F queen stopped laying.
- Shaded area. The bees emerging in this area will be winter bees
- Examining the colony at this point one should see:
- No eggs or larvae but some brood.
- Several swarm queen cells on the bottom and side edges of the comb.
- Plenty of workers going about their business foraging and bringing in nectar.
- If the colony is inspected at point C: there may be a virgin queen in the colony and she may be on a mating flight. Opening up the colony may disrupt her return to the colony.
- The risked is reduced by having patience. Wait until you see pollen being taken into the colony, a sure sign that the queen has started to lay.
- Seasonal var pop 3

- I= first QC sealed and issue of the swarm
- 2= new queen hatches
- 3= new queen starts laying
- X= months from Man
- Y=000s of bees
- Pink= adult bees
- Blue= brood
- Dotted= how adult population would grown without a swarm