Abstract
The thermal behavior of round and wagtail dancing honeybees (Apis mellifera carnica) gathering sucrose solutions of concentrations between 0.5 and 2 mol·l-1 was investigated under field conditions by infrared thermography (30–506 m flight distance). During the stay inside the hive thoracic surface temperature ranged from 31.4 to 43.9 °C. In both round and wagtail dancing honeybees the concentration of sucrose in the food influenced dancing temperature in a non-linear way. Average dancing temperature was 37.9 °C in foragers gathering a 0.5 mol·l-1 sucrose solution, 40.1°C with a 1 mol·l-1, 40.6°C with a 1.5 mol·l-1 and 40.7°C with a 2 mol·l-1 solution. The variability of thoracic temperature was highest with the 0.5 mol·l-1 and lowest with the 1.5 and 2 mol·l-1 concentrations. Thoracic temperatures during trophallactic contact with hive bees were similar to dancing temperature at 1.5 mol·l-1 but lower at the other concentrations. During periods of distribution of food to hive bees (trophallactic contact >2.5s) the dancers' thorax cooled down by more than 0.5°C considerably more frequently with the 0.5 mol·l-1 solution (65% of cases) than with the 1.5 mol·l-1 solution (26%). By contrast, heating the thorax up by more than 0.5°C was infrequent with the 0.5 mol·l-1 solution (2%) but occurred at a maximum rate of 26% with the 1.5 mol·l-1 solution. Bees gathering the 1 or 2 mol·l-1 solutions showed intermediate behavior. Linear model analysis showed that at higher concentrations the dancers compensated better for variations of hive air temperature: per 1 °C increase of hive temperature dancing temperature increased by 0.34, 0.22, 0.12, and 0.13 °C with 0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2 mol·l-1 sucrose solutions, respectively. The results furnish evidence that dancing honeybees follow a strategy of “selective heterothermy” by tuning their thermal behavior to the needs of the behavior performed at the moment. Thoracic temperature is regulated to a high level and more accurately when fast exploitation of profitable food sources is recommended. Thoracic temperature is lowered when the ratio of gain to costs of foraging becomes more unfavorable.
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Abbreviations
- SD :
-
standard deviation
- SD reg :
-
SD around regression line
- H rel :
-
relative humidity at feeding station
- T a :
-
air temperature at feeding station
- T i :
-
air temperature near the dancers
- T d :
-
Thoracic surface temperatures
- T d :
-
dancing
- T tr :
-
trophallactic contact (distribution of food)
- T w :
-
walking
- T stay :
-
mean temperature of total stay in the hive
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Communicated by H. Langer
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Stabentheiner, A., Kovac, H. & Hagmüller, K. Thermal behavior of round and wagtail dancing honeybees. J Comp Physiol B 165, 433–444 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00261297
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00261297