How long will honey bees (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Apis mellifera</Emphasis> L.) be stimulated by scent to revisit past-profitable forage sites? |
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Authors: | Email author" target="_blank">Madeleine?BeekmanEmail author |
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Institution: | (1) School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney, A12, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia |
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Abstract: | Honey bees utilise floral food sources that vary temporally in their relative and absolute quality. Via a sophisticated colony
organisation, a honey bee colony allocates its foragers such that the colony focuses on the most profitable forage sites while
keeping track of changes within its foraging environment. One important mechanism of the allocation of foragers is the ability
of experienced foragers to revisit past-profitable forage sites after a period of temporary dearth caused by, for example,
inclement weather. The scent of past-profitable forage within the colony brought back by other foragers is sufficient to reactivate
these experienced foragers. Here I determine for how long bees react to the scent of a past-profitable forage site. I show
that the ability of foragers to revisit the location of a past-profitable food source diminishes rapidly over a period of
10 days, until no forager reacts to the cue (scent). I discuss the implications of these findings with respect to the colony’s
ability to react rapidly to changing foraging conditions. |
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Keywords: | Honey bees Foraging Memory Learning Extinction |
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