Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution => Topic started by: Pseudoscience-is-malarkey on 16/02/2022 14:34:02
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Do they possibly have an emotional bond with their hive? Do they possibly think things like "I'm proud of the hive I was born and raised in" or "MY HIVE IS BETTER THAN THE HIVE TWO BLOCKS DOWN"?
There is solidarity/unity among all members of the sovereign hive. Democracy is practiced in hives in that they choose what queen leads them (by not killing them) and "impeach" when they lose confidence. Or are they just simply protecting their honey and fertile queen?
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A: my hive is welcoming and I have a job there
B: I know where it is, within a meter or so*
C: traffic control will sequence and direct me in
D: the guardians at any other hive will kill me
Ants have the same thought processes.
*A pilot friend discovered that he could move a working hive up to a meter sideways but beyond 2m, incoming traffic often couldn't locate the final approach track. Just like human aviators, he saw that they flew to an inbound landmark 5 - 10 m away from the entrance and waited there for an approach instruction.
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A pilot friend discovered that he could move a working hive up to a meter sideways
This must be a problem for the bees that are shipped thousands of miles across the USA to follow the flowers that need pollination.
Do they just give the bees amnesia, so they identify new landmarks in the new location?
Or do the old foragers die in transit, and the new foragers seek their own landmarks?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beekeeping_in_the_United_States#Bee_rentals_and_migratory_beekeeping
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Interesting. I've heard the "don't move the hive" story from other beekeepers too. It still makes sense because the migratory colonies are transported in working hives.
If you keep them cool and dark in transit, I guess the bees go into some kind of torpor and gradually expand their foraging radius when released, so they establish new landmarks for each location. What my friend did was to move the hive during the working day so bees returning from a sortie (some travel up to 5 miles from the hive and spend a couple of hours away) got disoriented. He was a naval aviator and had plenty of experience of moving runways!
There is indeed a high turnover of the labor force. Apparently most worker honey bees only have a 3 week service life.
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Do they possibly have an emotional bond with their hive?
More a scent bond - this smells like home
Do they possibly think things like "I'm proud of the hive I was born and raised in" or "MY HIVE IS BETTER THAN THE HIVE TWO BLOCKS DOWN"?
they will drift into other hives if they are too close
Democracy is practiced in hives
there is a sort of consensus, but a fair bit of bullying. Mostly they work in a similar way to ants, as Alan says, with a stimulus, response, feedback system.
in that they choose what queen leads them (by not killing them) and "impeach" when they lose confidence.
not really, half will set off to make a new colony (swarm) with the old queen if she starts failing, or she’ll just die off. Sometimes you will find the old queen living happily alongside her daughter who is now queen bee.
D: the guardians at any other hive will kill me
unless I bring gifts eg a full crop of nectar.
*A pilot friend discovered that he could move a working hive up to a meter sideways but beyond 2m, incoming traffic often couldn't locate the final approach track.
The rule in old money was “move less than 3 ft or more than 3 miles, otherwise they get lost
They are better at finding a hive moved fwd or back on the flight path than sideways.
A landmark helps, we often put a pot plant to the side of the entrance and move this with the hive if keeping it at the same site.
If you move to a new, distant site you will see them out on orientation flights - flying in every increasing circles, also hovering in front of the hive or other landmarks to get their bearings.