The effects of young brood on the foraging behavior of two strains of honey bees ( Apis mellifera )
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ORIGINAL PAPER
The effects of young brood on the foraging behavior of two strains of honey bees (Apis mellifera) Jennifer M. Tsuruda & Robert E. Page Jr.
Received: 23 February 2009 / Revised: 1 July 2009 / Accepted: 13 July 2009 / Published online: 5 August 2009 # The Author(s) 2009. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract Honey bee foragers specialize on collecting pollen and nectar. Pollen foraging behavior is modulated by at least two stimuli within the nest: the presence of brood pheromone and young larvae and the quantity of stored pollen. Genetic variation in pollen foraging behavior has been demonstrated repeatedly. We used selected high and low pollen-hoarding strains of bees that differ dramatically in the quantity of pollen collected to determine if the observed differences in foraging could be explained by differential responses to brood stimuli. Workers from the high and low pollen-hoarding strains and wild-type bees were co-fostered in colonies with either brood or no brood. As expected based on previous studies, returning high pollen-hoarding foragers collected heavier pollen loads and lighter nectar loads than low pollen-hoarding bees. Effects of brood treatment were also observed; bees exposed to brood collected heavier pollen loads and initiated foraging earlier than those from broodless colonies. More specifically, brood treatment resulted in increased pollen foraging
Communicated by R. Moritz J. M. Tsuruda : R. E. Page Jr. Department of Entomology, University of California, One Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616, USA R. E. Page Jr. School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, PO Box 874501, Tempe, AZ 85287-4501, USA Present Address: J. M. Tsuruda (*) Department of Entomology, Purdue University, 901 W. State St., West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA e-mail:[email protected]
in high pollen-hoarding bees but did not affect pollen foraging in low pollen-hoarding bees, suggesting that high pollen-hoarding bees are more sensitive to the presence of brood. However, response to brood stimuli does not sufficiently explain the differences in foraging behavior between the strains since these differences persisted even in the absence of brood. Keywords Honey bee . Pollen foraging . Brood . Genotype
Introduction Honey bees demonstrate a pronounced division of labor between bees that work in the nest and those that forage. Worker honey bees usually initiate foraging when they are 2–3 weeks old (Rösch 1925). Most bees collect both pollen and nectar, but individuals may concentrate more on one resource than the other. Pollen specialists tend to carry relatively more pollen and less nectar than nectar specialists (Hunt et al. 1995; Page et al. 2000). Some of the observed variation in foraging behavior is due to genetic variation (Hellmich et al. 1985; Calderone and Page 1988, 1991, 1996; Calderone et al. 1989; Dreller et al. 1995; Robinson and Page 1989; Rothenbuhler and Page 1989; Hunt et al. 1995; Page et al. 1995, 2000; Fewell and Page 1993, 2000; Guzman-Novoa and Gary 1993, Guzm
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