I came across this article and thought it might be interesting...
 
Quotation:
 
Survivorship of foraging honey bees
P.K. Visscher and R. Dukas
Insectes Sociaux 44: 1-5, 1997
 
Summary
We recorded lifetime foraging activity and survivorship of individual honey bees
foraging under natural settings. Bees experienced a constant probability of
death per unit time away from the colony. This leads to a log-linear
survivorship curve of type II. Most bees died before reaching senescence. The
patterns of survivorship are likely to influence the evolution of foraging
behavior, and this results suggest that age-independent factors such as
predation could play a strong role in selection of foraging range and other
parameters. Our result is contrary to the pattern expected if survivorship of
individual honey bee foragers is determined largely by a limited lifetime budget
of energy expenditure, which would imply a low probability of mortality early in
a bee's foraging life, followed by a sharp increase in mortality late in life,
when either physiological or mechanical wear cause death.
 
End of quotation
 
Part of one of their figures:
 
The observed distribution of total lifetime foraging duration for 33 bees
 
          _________
       7 |    |    |
         |    |    |_________
Bees   6 |    |    |    |    |
         |    |    |    |    |
dying  5 |    |    |    |    |
         |    |    |    |    |
 per   4 |    |    |    |    |
         |    |    |    |    |
10 hr  3 |    |    |    |    |
         |    |    |    |    |_________
inter- 2 |    |    |    |    |    |    |
         |    |    |    |    |    |    |______________
       1 |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |
         |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |
         0   10   20   30   40   50   60   70   80   90   100
 
                      Hours of foraging
 
 
____________________________________________________________________
Michael Haberl
Zoologisches Institut der Uni Muenchen         Tel: ++49 89 5902-444
Luisenstr. 14                                  Fax: ++49 89 5902-450
80333 Muenchen            e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Germany              http://www.ebe-online.de/home/mhaberl/index.htm
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