Summary
To place social insect foraging behavior within an evolutionary context, it is necessary to establish relationships between individual foraging decisions and parameters influencing colony fitness. To address this problem, we examined interactions between individual foraging behavior and pollen storage levels in the honey bee, Apis mellifera L. Colonies responded to low pollen storage conditions by increasing pollen intake rates 54% relative to high pollen storage conditions, demonstrating a direct relationship between pollen storage levels and foraging effort. Approximately 80% of the difference in pollen intake rates was accounted for by variation in individual foraging effort, via changes in foraging activity and individual pollen load size. An additional 20% resulted from changes in the proportion of the foraging population collecting pollen. Under both high and low pollen storage treatments, colonies returned pollen storage levels to pre-experimental levels within 16 days, suggesting that honey bees regulate pollen storage levels around a homeostatic set point. We also found a direct relationship between pollen storage levels and colony brood production, demonstrating the potential for cumulative changes in individual foraging decisions to affect colony fitness.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Allen MD, Jeffree EP (1956) The influence of stored pollen and colony size on the brood rearing of honey bees. Ann Appl Biol 44:649–656
Al-Tikrity WS, Benton AW, Hillman RC, Clarke WW Jr (1972) The relationship between the amount of unsealed brood in honeybee colonies and their pollen collection. J Apic Res 11:9–12
Barker RJ (1971) The influence of food inside the hive on pollen collection by a honeybee colony. J Apic Res 10:23–26
Breed MD, Fewell JH, Moore AJ, Williams KR (1987) Graded recruitment in a ponerine ant. Behav Ecol Sociolbiol 20:407–411
Calderone NW, Page RE Jr (1988) Genotypic variability in age polyethism and task specialization in the honey bee, Apis mellifera (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Behav Ecol Sociobiol 22:17–25
Cale GH (1968) Pollen gathering relationship to honey collection and egg-laying in honey bees. Am Bee J 108:8–9
Camazine S (1990) From individual to colony-level behavior in honey bees: the regulation of pollen foraging. In: Veeresh GK, Mallik B, Viraktamath CA (eds) Social insects and the environment, Proc 11 Int Congr IUSSI, Oxford & IBH Publ Co, New Delhi, pp 566–567
Cheverton J, Kacelnik A, Krebs JR (1985) Optimal foraging: constraints and currencies. In: Hölldobler B, Lindauer M (eds) Experimental behavioral ecology and sociobiology. Sinauer Assoc, New York, pp 109–126
Danka RG, Hellmich RL II, Rinderer TE, Collins AM (1987) Diet-selection ecology of tropically and temperately adapted honey bees. Anim Behav 35:1858–1863
Davidson DW (1978) Experimental tests of the optimal diet in two social insects. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 4:35–41
Eckert C (1990) The relationship between colony state and individual foraging strategies in the honey bee, Apis mellifera L. MSc Thesis, Simon Fraser Univ, British Columbia
Fewell JH, Harrison JF (1991) Flexible seed selection by the western harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex occidentalis. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 28:377–384
Fewell JH, Ydenberg RC, Winston ML (1991) Individual foraging effort as a function of colony population in the honey bee, Apis mellifera L. Anim Behav 42:153–155
Filmer RS (1932) Brood area and colony size as factors in activity of pollination units. J Econ Entomol 25:336–343
Free JB (1967) Factors determining the collection of pollen by honeybee foragers. Anim Behav 15:134–144
Fukuda H (1960) Some observations on the pollen foraging activities of the honey bee, Apis mellifera L.: preliminary report. J Fac Sci Hokkaido Univ, Ser 6 14:381–386
Haydak (1935) Brood rearing by honeybees confined to pure carbohydrate diet. J Econ Entomol 28:657–660
Heinrich B (1979) Bumblebee economics. Harvard Univ Press, Cambridge, MA
Hellmich RL II, Rothenbuhler WC (1986) Relationship between different amounts of brood and the collection and use of pollen by the honey bee (Apis mellifera). Apidologie 17:13–20
Higo H, Slessor K, Winston ML (1992) Colony development, foraging behaviour and synthetic queen pheromones in the honey bee, Apis mellifera. Can Entomol (in press)
Houston AI, Schmid-Hempel P, Kacelnik A (1988) Colony growth, worker mortality, and foraging strategies in social insects. Am Nat 131:107–114
Jay SC (1986) Spatial management of honey bees on crops. Annu Rev Entomol 31:49–65
Jaycox ER (1970) Honey bee foraging behavior: responses to queens, larvae, and extracts of larvae. Ann Entomol Soc Amer 63:1689–1694
Kolmes SA (1990) Recent progress in the study of adaptive behavioural flexibility in honeybees. Bee World 71:122–129
Lee PC, Winston ML (1985) The influence of swarm size on brood production and emergent worker weight in newly founded honey bee colonies (Apis mellifera L.). Insectes Soc 32:96–103
Lee PC, Winston ML (1987) Effect of reproductive timing and colony size on survival, offspring colony size and drone production in the honey bee (Apis mellifera). Ecol Entomol 12:187–195
LePage M, Boch R (1968) Pollen lipids attractive to honeybees. Lipids 3:530–534
Levin MD, Bohart GE (1955) Selection of pollens by honey bees. Am Bee J 95:392–393, 402
Lindauer M (1952) Ein Beitrag zur Frage der Arbeitsteilung im Bienenstaat. Z Vergl Physiol 34:299–345
Menzel R (1985) Learning in honey bees in an ecological and behavioral context. In: Hölldobler B, Lindauer M (eds) Experimental Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, Sinauer Assoc, New York, pp 55–74
Michener CD (1964) Reproductive efficiency in relation to colony size in hymenopterous societies. Insectes Soc 11:317–342
Neukirch A (1982) Dependence of life span of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) upon flight performance and energy consumption. J Comp Physiol 146:35–40
Nuñez JA (1970) The relationship between sugar flow and foraging and recruiting behaviour of honey bees (Apis mellifera L.). Anim Behav 18:527–538
Pyke G (1981) Optimal foraging in bumblebees: rule of departure from an inflorescence. Can J Zool 60:417–428
Robinson GE, Page RE Jr (1989) Genetic determination of nectar foraging, pollen foraging, and nest-site scouting in honey bee colonies. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 24:317–323
Schmid-Hempel P (1984) The importance of handling time for flight directionality in bees. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 15:303–309
Schmid-Hempel P (1987) Efficient nectar collection by honey bees. I. Economic models. J Anim Ecol 56:209–218
Schmid-Hempel P, Wolf T (1988) Foraging effort and life span in a social insect. J Anim Ecol 57:509–522
Schmid-Hempel P, Kacelnik A, Houston AI (1985) Honeybees maximize efficiency by not filling their crops. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 17:61–66
Schmidt JO (1985) Phagostimulants in pollen. J Apic Res 24:107–114
Seeley TD (1985) Honeybee ecology. Princeton Univ Press, Princeton, NJ
Seeley TD (1986) Social foraging by honeybees: how colonies allocate foragers among patches of flowers. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 19:343–354
Seeley TD (1989) Social foraging in honey bees: how nectar foragers assess their colony's nutritional status. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 24:181–199
Seeley TD, Visscher PK (1985) Survival of honey bees in cold climates: the critical timing of colony growth and reproduction. Ecol Entomol 10:81–88
Sorenson AA, Busch TM, Vinson SB (1985) Control of food influx by temporal subcastes in the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 17:191–198
Stephens D, Krebs J (1986) Foraging theory. Princeton Univ Press, Princeton, NJ
Todd FE, Reed CB (1970) Brood measurement as a valid index to the value of honey bees as pollinators. J Econ Entomol 63:148–149
Tschinkel WR (1991) Insect sociometry, a field in search of data. Insectes Soc 38:77–82
Waddington KD (1980) Flight patterns of foraging bees in relation to artificial flower density and distribution of nectar. Oecologia 44:199–244
Winston ML (1979) Intra-colony demography and reproductive rate of the Africanized honeybee in South America. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 4:279–292
Winston ML (1980) Swarming, afterswarming, and reproductive rate of unmanaged honeybee colonies (Apis mellifera). Insectes Soc 27:391–398
Winston ML (1987) The biology of the honey bee. Harvard Univ Press, Cambridge, MA
Winston ML, Dropkin JA, Taylor OR (1981) Demography and life history characteristics of two honey bee races (Apis mellifera). Oecologia 48:407–413
Wolf TJ, Schmid-Hempel (1990) On the integration of individual foraging strategies with colony ergonomics in social insects: nectar-collection in honey bees. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 27:103–111
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Offprint requests to: J.H. Fewell at the current address
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Fewell, J.H., Winston, M.L. Colony state and regulation of pollen foraging in the honey bee, Apis mellifera L.. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 30, 387–393 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00176173
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00176173