Bees react according to circumstances

Whether or not bees choose to go for food depends on the reserves in their nest, scientists from Queen Mary, University of London said.

When bumblebees return to the nest once to make food, they secrete a pheromone that motivates the same mates to find food. The scientists first suggested that this pheromone produced the same reaction in all bees and flocks. But a new study from Queen Mary's School of Biochemistry science has shown that bees respond to pheroments depending on their circumstances.

Dr. Mathieu Molet and Dr. Nigel Raine have shown that worker bees tend to react with phermone and leave the nest to find food, if there is little or no reserve food in the nest.

RFID coded bee bees in the nest (Photo: Queen Mary, University of London).

Dr Molet said: 'It's hard work to fly all day long to find nectar and pollen .' So it is perfectly reasonable that bees tend to react with pheromones when there is little food left. In behavioral and social biology journals, the team, funded by the Natural Environmental Research Council, explains how they use radio frequency identification (RFID) technology (the system Electronic code typing is used on London subway cards) to automatically record bee activity in the laboratory.

Different bees (Bombus terrestris) have different levels of food storage (in the form of niches). Pheromones received are used for bees, they are controlled for more than 16,000 searches for food. The reaction to pheromones is stronger in flocks with less food - with more worker bees, and many more feed searches.

The team's findings suggest that pheromones can regulate the activity of seeking bee food - preventing unnecessary energy consumption and reducing the risk of coping with food reserves. In the future, artificial pheromones may also be used to increase the effectiveness of bees that pollinate commercial crops, such as tomatoes.

Refer

1 Molet et al.Colony nutritional status modulates worker responses to foraging recruitment pheromone in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris.Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 2008;DOI: 10.1007 / s00265-008-0623-3