Collective personalities in honeybee colonies are linked to colony fitness
Personality differences (i.e. consistent between-individual differences in behaviour) play an important role in the lives of humans and other animals, influencing both their day-to-day actions and their long-term reproductive success. For organisms living in highly structured groups of related individuals, such as colonies of social insects, personalities could also emerge at the group level. However, […]
Communication signals used in worker-drone interactions in the honeybee, Apis mellifera
Although the use of communication signals during worker-queen interactions in honeybees have been studied in detail, signals involved in worker-drone interactions have received less attention. We determined whether workers perform piping and the vibration signal on drones, and whether drones respond in ways that potentially enhance their mating success. Workers did not produce piping on […]
Public use of olfactory information associated with predation in two species of social bees
Recent studies have documented that social bees can use heterospecific information to find or avoid food resources, but little is known about whether bees gain information from heterospecifics about predation risk. We report the first detailed field tests in bees of hetero- and conspecific avoidance of olfactory information associated with predation. We determined whether Apis […]