Social Behavior in Honey Bee , by Dr. Vidhin Kamble, Sangola College, Sangola

Social Behavior in Honey Bee 

Honey bee as a social insect

Honey bee is a social insect. The nest of the honey bee is known as bee-hive. A hive in summer consists of 32 to 50 thousands individuals, depending on the locality. The members of honey bees are of three castes namely the queen bee, the worker bee and the drone bee. All the three types depend on each other for their existence. There is normally one queen, 10,000 to 30,000 workers and few hundred drones in a colony.  The' 'highly evolved; social organization of bees had been established before the existence of human race. Bees teach us the lesson of work. and work. A highly Organized system of division of labour was found in colony of bees. The Colony is highly polymorphic, comprising three varieties or castes of honeybees are as follows.

Castes of honey bee

1.                 Queen

2.                 Workers

3.                 Drones. 
   In a normal colony there is only one queen (functional female). 25,000 – workers (female) and 360- 500 drones.  The queen after nuptial flight (mating) female lays  both fertilized and unfertilized eggs, From unfertilized eggs male bees are developed which are termed as drones,  whereas from the fertilized eggs; worker bees (sterile female's) are produced. The workers when feed on royal jelly, develop in queen.           

                

The Queen : The queen is the only perfectly developed fertile female.: She is the mother, of the colony and provided with well developed ovaries. Only one queen is present in each colony and feeds on royal jelly. Egg laying is the sole function of the queen throughput her active life span and lay 1300 eggs in a day which is almost twice the weight of her body. The queen is 1'5 to 2 cm in length and  easily distinguished by her long tapering head , legs and wings.

She is unable to produce wax or honey or polen, nector. She mates with the drone in the air (naptialflight) only-.once in-her life but in a single chance of fertilization, drone releases 2-crore sperms which are enough for the fertilization of the eggs at the time of laying by the female throughout her life span. In the whole life span of 2 to 5 years. a queen lays about 15,00,000 eggs.   

Queen provides the cohesive force, which keeps the thousands of worker members of the colony together as a social unit. She does this by satisfying their demands for queen substance i.e. a substance secreted by the queen. This substance is most important in the maintenance of a colony and its social organization. It has been found that a scent of fatty acid 9-oxodecenoic acid produced by queen's mandibular glands attracts drones and workers.

When the quean loses its egg laying  capacity, another worker of the same colony starts feeding on queen's diet i.e. royal jelly young and grubs develops in to new queen and is provided facilities of real queen. When the colony is crowded with adult bees, the queen leaves with a set of workers to establish new colonies and to promote propagation. This natural phenomenon is called swarming.  When 2 Or 3 queens are developed in a colony, only one take the position of the real queen and the others come out with some workers to establish new colonies.   Queen bees also have stings and use them in battles with each other for dominance of the colony.

The Drone : Drones are the male bees produced from unfertilised eggs. Their production in the hive synchronises with the production of the new (virgin) queens. At the age of 14-18 days the drones perform mating flight chasing the virgin queen in the air. Drones can live up to about 60 days, although they are stung and killed after the mating.

The Workers:

These are imperfectly developed females from the  fertilized eggs laid by the queen and live in a chamber called as  "worker cell". The workers take 21 days in the development from egg to  the adult and the total life span of a worker is about 6  weeks. The  workers are unable to reproduce but possess all the maternal instincts. They are responsible for all the work necessary for the maintenance and welfare of the colony. Division of labour among the workers is on a physiological basis.

The indoor and outdoor duties of the colony are performed by the workers only due to having special structural modifications for  particular work as :

(1) Long proboscis for sucking the nectar.

(2) Strong wings for fanning.

(3) Pollen basket for the collection of pollen.

(4) Powerful sting to defend the colony against enemies.

(5) Wax glands for wax secretion.

Each worker bee performs different types of work in her life she attends to indoor duties such 

 Honey comb 

The comb of the bees are formed mainly by the secretion from the wax glands present in the abdomen of the worker bees. A comb is a vertical sheet of wax, with a double layer of hexagonal cells. The wax is masticated and mixed with the secretions of the cephalic glands to convert into a plastic resinous substance. The resinous chemical substance present in the wax is called propolis which is derived from pollen grains.

The cells of the comb are of various types. The ‘storage cells’ contains honey and pollen. They are built in the margin and at the top of the comb. The brood cells contains the young stages of the honeybees and they are built in the centre and the lower part of the comb. Young ones of honey bees are collectively called brood. Brood chamber is divided into three types they are Worker-chamber : to rear the worker larvae developing into workers Drone chamber : to rear the drone larvae developing in to drones. Queen -chamber : to rear the queen larva developing into queen.

There is no special chamber for adults except queen. They move on the surface of the comb. Modern bee-hive structure

LIFE HISTORY OF THE HONEY BEE (Life cycle)

     

Nuptial flight or marriage flight Nuptial flight :

 After swarming, the new virgin queen is followed by the drones in clear, sunny days is called nuptial flight. One of the  drones starts copulating with the queen in the sky and fertilizes the  queen and dies during the course of copulation. The queen receives  sperms and store them in spermathea and reaches to, the hive. This  whole phenomenon is known as nuptial flight or marriage flight. The virgin queen copulates only once with the drone  at the beginning of her reproductive life.

The first swarm is led by the old queen but the second  swarm is led by the 7 days.  Old virgin queen  which followed by the  drones. The drones leave the hive in large numbers on warm sunny days.  The  function of drones is to fertilize the queens. Fertilization  takes place only in clear air. The male is always killed in the act of  fertilization, since he can eject the sperm by great pressure in her abdomen with the help of muscles and fluid pressure of blood . The queen receives spertnatophores and stores in the spermatheca. Along  with queen, died drone fall on the ground and the queen reaches the hive. This phenomenon of copulation is known as nuptial flight or  marriage flight.

After fertilization the queen generally lays one egg in  one brood cell. The eggs are pinkish coloured, elongated, cylindrical and generally attached at the bottom of the cell at the junction of any two  walls. The eggs hatch in 3 days in to white, legless grubs or larvae from  the fertilized-as well as unfertilized eggs. The larvae are provided with appropriate food and are inspected for their demands, by nurse  bees. Fertilized eggs are laid in worker or queen cells while unfertilized eggs are laid in drone cells.

Grub (Larva) : 

The larvae are minute, white, apodous (legless).  They grow and moult several times. Workers maintain a constant  temperature of 35⁰C in the colony by either crowding or fanning. All the  larvae are fed with protein and vit-B rich royal jelly secreted by  pharyngeal glands of worker bees for first 3-days. After 4 days worker  and drone bees larvae are fed on a mixture of honey and pollen and bee bread '. The grubs destined to produce queens receive the royal jelly throughout their life in abundant quantity. The queen and the drone   grubs are larger in size.

 Pupa : After 5-days of feeding the cell is sealed and the grubs undergo pupation. It spins a thin silken cocoon and pupates completely;  The worker,  drone and queen pupae can be distinguished by examining the distance  between eyes. In case of drone, eye meet over the head and in worker.

Supersedure :

When the egg laying capacity of the old queen is lost or is suddenly dies, a new young and vigorous queen takes the position of the old queen is called supersedure.

 Absconding :

The migration of the complete colony from one place to another place due to some unfavorable conditions of life, such as destruction of the comb by termites or ax-moths and scarcity of nectar producing flowers around the hive. This phenomenon is quite different from swarming.       

                             

COMMUNICATION IN BEES (Language of honey bee)

    Honey bees have an unique and one of the best understood animal languages with which they inform each other the distance and direction of the source of food. This system of communication (language) was identified and discovered by Australian zoologist Karl-von-Frisch at the University of Munich, Germany.

He found that the Forager bee on return to the nest makes two kinds of dances on the vertical surface of the comb.

     (i) Round dance

    (ii) Tail-wagging dance 

Round dance: 

When the source of food is closer to honey hive bees perform round dance The round dance is used to direct a short distance i.e. less than 50 meters. In the round dance, the bees run in circles, first in one and then in opposite direction (clock and anticlock-wise). In fact she traces out a  figure of eight with its two loops more or less closely superimposed upon one another. The performer bee do this dance -for half a minute or more  on same part of comb and latter repeats, it on the another part of comb   to demonstrate other group of bees.-Some of the workers in the hive

       Fig. Round Dance

Tail-wagging dance: (Waggle dance)

If the source of food discovered by a forager is more than about 50 meters away it performs a different dance on its return. In which the bee runs along  semicircles, alternately left and right, ending each turn with a straight run back to her starting point. During the Straight run, the bee shakes (wags) its abdomen from side to side so called Tail wagging dance. Won Frisch found that wags per unit time was related to the distance  the food was located, more the wags-indicate that the food source was nearer.

For example:- Apis  indica perform. 10.5 shakes (wags) in 15 seconds, indicated a distance of 60 feet and 4.4 wags showed 1000 feet. These figures vary with different bees species.

The tail-wagging dance also indicates the direction of the food supply. The signal depends upon the bees use of the sun as a compass and of polarized light, if the sun is obscured. If the wagging dance run is carried out in vertically upwards on the comb the feed place lies in the same direction as the sun, while if it is carried out downwards the feeding place is situated away and opposite direction from the sun.