Honeybee foragers increase the use of waggle dance information when private information becomes unrewarding
Section snippets
Methods
Experiments were performed in September and October 2009. Ivy, Hedera helix, was the only important natural pollen and nectar source available at that time. We studied three colonies of Apis mellifera at the Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects, University of Sussex. Each colony was housed in an observation hive containing three deep Langstroth frames or the equivalent comb area in medium frames (H1–H3). Each colony was thriving with a queen, about 3000 workers, brood, pollen and honey
Dance Following of F1 Foragers
Across the three trials, F2 foragers performed 472 waggle dances comprising 5272 waggle runs (mean ± SD = 11.17 ± 8.05 per dance,) for the F2 feeder during test days 1 (245 dances) and 2 (227 dances). F1 foragers showed a strong interest in these dances and most (104 of 118, 88.1%) followed dances (4203 waggle runs in total). On average, F1 foragers followed 11.59 ± 5.60 (range 1–35) dances and 40.03 ± 28.92 (range 1–127) waggle runs for the F2 feeder, with six (5.8%) following more than 100 waggle runs.
Discussion
Foragers that repeatedly found that retrieving private information about feeding sites was unrewarded subsequently increased the number of waggle runs followed per dance for an alternative location of the same food type. As a consequence, foragers started switching from visiting the familiar but now unrewarding feeder, F1, to the unfamiliar but rewarding feeder, F2, advertised by F2 dancers (Fig. 1). F1 foragers did not increase their interest in dances advertising natural food sources. They
Acknowledgments
We thank Francisca Segers, Fiona Riddell, Tomer Czaczkes and Johanneke Oosten for help with data collection and Margaret Couvillon, Walter Farina and two anonymous referees for comments on the manuscript. C.G. was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF grant PBBEP3-123648).
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