HONEY BEE BEHAVIORA LECTURE BYMR.ALLAH DAD KHAN

Honey Bee Vs Human Being Because they can

maintain a close relationship with humans, the behavior of honey bees has been well-researched. Honey bees live in well-organized colonies and do not require hibernation

Honey Production They are best known for

their production of honey, which they store in wax combs inside nests. Honey bees are generally active during spring, when they go in search of plants from which to collect pollen and nectar. From these two ingredients, they create honey, which humans have harvested for hundreds of years

Social Insect Honey bees are social creatures

and live within colonies with a queen, thousands of workers and a few male drones. Workers make these nests from wax, which they secrete from their abdominal glands. Within each cell, young workers place pollen and nectar as food for developing larvae. Male drones are ejected from the nest to die during autumn, after they have completed their only task in life: to mate with queens. The age of honey bees also plays an important role in determining which individuals perform various daily activities.

Honey Bees Are Adaptable Honey bees are very

adaptable. While honey bees forage for food in groups, a colony can survive without foraging for several years by living on food reserves and huddling in large, compacted masses during winter seasons. Honey bees behave similarly in Africa, Asia, Europe and other parts of the world, though certain species are known to be more aggressive than others

Honey Bees Behave defensively Like some insects, honey bees

behave defensively when intruders are near, guarding the entrance to their nests. However, honey bees are able to sting only once. Because stingers contain barbs and are attached to the worker’s intestines, they detach from the stinging bee’s body after attacking a victim. While a honey bee will die soon after transferring its venom, pheromones secreted during the attack will alarm and stimulate other worker bees to attack, as well.

Bee Hives in Wild In the wild, honey bee hives are

often located in the holes of trees and on rock crevices. The hive is made from wax from the special abdominal glands of worker honey bees. Workers sweep up a few flakes of wax from their abdomens and chew these flakes until the wax becomes soft. Workers then mold the wax and use it in making cells to form the hive. Unlike other bee species, honey bees do not hibernate during cold periods. Instead, they remain inside the nests huddled closely together, sharing body heat and feeding on stored food supplies.

Honey Bees Lives in Colonies Honey bees are social creatures

and live in colonies. However, they do display some aggressive behavior within colonies: drones are ejected from their nests during cold weather, and a queen will sometimes sting other queens during mating fights for dominance. Although honey bees serve a significant role in pollination and ecology, measures should be taken to ensure that hives do not exist in close proximity to your home, due to the possibility of getting stung. Always contact a pest control professional before attempting to address an infestation

Guarding

At some point during the worker honey bee's life, she will take up the role of nest guard. Guarding is necessary to protect the hive against predation, parasitism and robbing. Here we see a wasp, Vespula vulgaris, attempting to enter the hive and the fierce response of the guard bees

Age Levels of Bees Correlated With Work Habits

The honey bee is adaptable to many environments. Honey bees that were native only to Europe, Asia, and Africa have adapted well to all but the polar regions of the world. Part of this adaptability lies in the capacity of the individual bee to “sense” what must be done, then to perform the necessary duty.

Queen Attendants

The queen bee is cleaned by her courtiers, who meet her every need, including the disposal of her waste. At the height of the season she lays her own weight in eggs every couple of hours, and so is continuously surrounded by young worker attendants, who feed her royal jelly. These attendants lick her body, taking up the queen odour (Queen Mandibular Pheromone), which is then spread throughout the colony via continuous food exchanges between the workers.

Swarming

Swarming is a natural method of reproduction, where the old queen leaves with a large proportion of her offsping from the original hive to form a new colony. The swarm has to hurry as the only provisions for the journey are in the form of full crops. Once the scout bees, up to 300 workers, have found an ideal site,it doesn't take long for the rest of the swarm (perhaps 20,000 bees) to fly off to the new location. The time taken here from the first bees take off until the last bee leaves is approximately 1 minute 40 seconds

The Drones

The time of day that drones fly in search of a mate depends on many factors, such as the geographic location, day length, and temperature. Drones usually fly from the hive in large numbers between 11 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Morning or early afternoon flights may last 2 or 3 hours. Later flights are shorter. When out of the hive, drones congregate in “mating areas,” which may serve to attract virgin queens. These areas usually are less than 100 feet from the ground and seem to be associated with land terrain.

The Queen

The virgin queen becomes sexually mature about 5 days after emergence. She is relatively quiet in the morning and most active in the afternoon. She may begin her mating flights 5 or 6 days after emergence and go on a number of flights over several days. Mating with 8 to 12 drones will stock her spermatheca with 6 million to 7 million sperm. She will begin to lay eggs in 2 to 5 days and may continue for years

Control of Foraging

A major crop pollination goal is to control foraging bees and get them to more effectively visit and pollinate crops; conversely, we would like to repel them from areas where there is danger from insecticides or where they endanger people. Work with other insects – both social and nonsocial – indicates that this might be accomplished some day by chemical and physical means

The Performance of Colonies

Genetically, we found that some bees produce more honey than others, but we do not know why. The individual bee may collect more because of its own genetic inheritance. The colony may store more honey because of the queen’s inherited ability to lay more eggs, resulting in a greater total population of bees in the hive, or because the bees are inherently longer lived

Cause of Stinging Bees or Temper

The term “temper” of bees refers to their inclination to sting. Many factors influence the temper of bees, and it is a difficult subject to study. Environment of the hive and manipulation by an individual beekeeper certainly influence temper responses of bees. Temper is probably influenced tremendously by the genetics or inheritance of the bee as well as the environment

Known Pheromone Activity

Chemicals that bees and other insects produce that influence, or direct, behavior of other bees are broadly called pheromones. In honey bees these chemicals are produced by the queen, workers, and probably drone

Flight Behavior

When several thousand bees and a queen are placed in new surroundings – which happens when the swarm enters its new domicile or a package of bees is installed, or a colony is moved to a new location – normal flight of some workers from the entrance may occur within minutes. If flowering plants are available, bees may be returning to the hive with pollen within an hour

Colony Morale

“Colony morale” generally refers to the well-being of the colony. If the morale is good, the bees are doing what is desired of them, including increasing the colony population, making honey, and pollinating flowers. Many factors affect colony morale. For example, if the queen is removed from a colony during a honey flow, the daily weight gains immediately decrease, although the bee population for the next 3 weeks is unaltered. Also, when a colony is preparing to swarm, the bees practically stop gathering pollen and nectar. Improper manipulations or external environment also affects colony morale. A colony has good morale when the maximum number of bees are making the maximum number of flights to gather nectar and pollen.

Housecleaning

Certain waste material accumulates in a normal colony. Adult bees and immature forms may die. Wax scales, cappings from the cells of emerging bees, particles of pollen, and crystallized bits of honey drop to the floor of the hive. Intruders, such as wax moths, bees from other colonies, and predators, are killed and fall to the floor. Worker bees remove this debris from the hiv