6.7 Communication Methods

Question 1

What are the 5 ways of communication in honey bees?

Answer 1

Trophallaxis, dancing, scenting, vibrating and pheremones

Question 2

Define Trophallaxis

Answer 2

The direct transfer of food or fluids from one individual to another.

Question 3

How does trophallaxis work?

Answer 3

A worker(receiver) will palpate their antennae at one another and stretches out her tongue to beg for food. The willing donor will open her mandible wide and regurgitates a drop of fluid onto her proboscis. The receiver will thrust her tongue forward and suck up the liquid. Anntenation helps to align mouth parts.

Question 4

How fast did John Free measure Trophallaxis?

Answer 4

He gave them 20cm³ syrup with radioactive phosphorous and within 24hrs 55% of colony members had received some.

Question 5

What do we mean when we say ‘colony stomach’?

Answer 5

Trophallaxis helps to share the colony’s food resources. Heater bees can be fed by ‘filling station bees’ when they need to produce heat in the cluster.

Question 6

Other than food sharing what can trophalaxis be used for?

Answer 6

It can help give workers social immunity and also can help exchange pheremones. Water transfer occurs through trophallaxis too.

Question 7

Who are the messenger bees?

Answer 7

These are the ones from the queens retinue who lick off the pheremone and disperse it to other workers. Queen substance has a half life of 15 minutes so it does not build up and prevents a false signal so they quickly sense they are queenless.

Question 8

What does the waggle dance encode?

Answer 8

Directs foragers to food using the 3Ds:
Distance - length of run/number of vibrations
Direction - angle
Desirability - number of circuits completed

Question 9

Describe the waggle dance

Answer 9

Figure of eight pattern with a straight run in the middle. During the middle segment the worker vibrates her abdomen

Question 10

What is the sickle dance

Answer 10

Transition between the waggle and round dance

Question 11

What is the round dance for?

Answer 11

There is food within 100m of the nest

Question 12

What is the purpose of the tremble dance?

Answer 12

It encourages idle workers to take on the role of nectar processing/unloading and stops the workers perfomring it from recutiing additional foragers. It is conducted when unloading times take too long. It balances nectar intake and processing rates

Question 13

Describe the round dance?

Answer 13

A circular dance with tiny vibrations/waggles at certain points

Question 14

Describe the tremble dance?

Answer 14

3 main components – she vibrates side to side, walks slowly across the comb, and every few seconds she changes direction.

Question 15

What is Dorsal-ventral abdominal vibrations for?

Answer 15

It is a signal to prepare others for more activity. Perfomed on queen cells when the swarm is about to depart.

Question 16

Describe DVAV?

Answer 16

A jerking motion made by bees that invovles vibrating their abdomen while grasping another bee with their legs.

Question 17

What is the role of the grooming invitation dance?

Answer 17

It encourages other bees to perfom allogrooming

Question 18

Describe the grooming invitation dance?

Answer 18

The dirty worker will stamp her legs rapidly and swing her body from side to side. At the same time she raises and lowers her body. She stops when she feels the mandibles of the cleaner bee and will spread sher wings and lean to one side to accommodate the cleaner

Question 19

Is the round and waggle dance the same thing?

Answer 19

Yes - they are a continum of the same communciation. There is an intermeidate form known as the sickle dance.

Question 20

How does the search time for an offloading bee change the returning forager behaviour?

Answer 20

Anything shorter than 40 seconds results in a waggle dance, longer than 40 seconds results in a tremble dance.

Question 21

What is the main gland used in scenting?

Answer 21

Nasanov gland

Question 22

How is the Nasanov gland used?

Answer 22

The scent organe is exposed by raising the abdomen and tipping the last abodminal segment downward. The gland is on the top between the 6th and 7th segment.

Question 23

Compare the frequenecy of wing beats and the abdomen angle between fanning and scenting?

Answer 23

The angle is much greater with scenting and the frequency is much quicker.

Question 24

How can the bees use scenting to help with foraging?

Answer 24

They can mark unscented forage sources like water or the hive entrance

Question 25

How do vibrations work?

Answer 25

They cause particles in the medium to pulse. Bees hear these by detecting the movement of air particles or movement of the medium they are on.

Question 26

How can bees produced vibrations?

Answer 26

They can uncouple their wings and flex their thoraci muscles when pressing their throax agaisnt the comb. They can also carry out stridualtion which is the rubbing together of body parts.

Question 27

How do bees ‘hear’ vibrations?

Answer 27

Their johnston’s organ is found on the antennae which convers mechanical vibrations into nerve impulses

Question 28

How does comb help vibration communciation?

Answer 28

It is desigend to amplify the vibratory signal. They tend to perfom vibrations on open cells which have greater recutiment than if they vibrate on sealed cells.

Question 29

Describe the stop signal?

Answer 29

The worker will headbutt the worker needed to stop and activate her flight muscles. During this she will vibrate.

Question 30

What is the role of the stop signal?

Answer 30

It downregulates waggle dancing both in swarms and during foraging

Question 31

How can bees avoid background noise interfeering with vibration communication?

Answer 31

each bee has 6 feet to tune into specific vibrations. Bees can dampen the noise with their posture linking 6 neighbouring cells together. The dance floor is kept free of brood. If the temeprature rises the wax becomes softer so loses its acoustic abilities.