Insect Communication
As most beekeepers know, honeybees and wasps are similar in many
ways. The general public often confuses them. Usually when someone
gets "stung by a bee" at a picnic, the real culprit is usually a
yellow jacket. And how many times have you seen an illustration of a
"bee hive" that looked more like a wasp nest than anything honeybees
build? So it should come as no surprise that wasps and bees are
similar in other ways.
I obtained several recent issues of the magazine "Insects Sociaux,"
which describe detailed studies of wasp behavior. One article
describes body communication among wasps:
"Among the most conspicuous yet enigmatic behaviors displayed
by paper wasps (Polistes) are body oscillations performed by adults
on the comb. These oscillations, which superficially resemble certain
aspects of the honey bee waggle dance, appear to be widespread among
temperate Polistes." *1 (citations at end of message)
Certain wasps reproduce their colonies by swarming, much as honeybees
do. Prior to departure, the workers perform an activity call
"buzz-running," evidently to communicate with their nest mates that a
decision has been made to issue a swarm. A buzz run is a frantic,
jerky run across the comb.
"Prior to reproductive swarming there are definitive changes
in wasp behavior which can be used as indicators that a colony is
about to produce a swarm." *2
In an article published at the end of 1999, the results of a
long-term study of honey bee swarming is reported. Interestingly,
"buzz-running" appears in honey bee colonies and is also associated
with pre-swarming. The main focus of the article is on how a decision
is made as to which site a swarm will go to among the several choices
located by the scouts. The way in which the bees communicate
information about the site is as follows:
"Scout bees fly throughout the surrounding countryside
searching for new nest-site cavities. When a scout returns after
inspecting a high-quality cavity, she performs waggle dances which
encode the distance and direction to the site. Most bees that danced
for nest sites also followed the dances of other scouts." *3
The method of communicating information is similar to that used by
foraging bees to recruit more foragers to a productive site.
"The colony functions as an information center also in the
allocation of its foragers, but in house-hunting this function is
even more refined. The only thing a nest-site scout brings back is
information, and this information is critical for the ... colony's
survival and reproduction. " *3
Many scouts will dance and the dances may represent many different
sites. The authors designed an experiment to simplify the
observations. They placed bees in a desert location with no suitable
nesting sites other than the two boxes the researchers provided. They
observed the two factions of scouts lobbying for the two boxes until
one site was eliminated by the bees. The process by which this
decision is reached is the primary focus of the article.
The desert experiment was also described in great detail in a recent
issue of "The Mind of the Swarm" David Pacchioli (Research/Penn
State, Vol. 19, no. 3 (September, 1998)) You can read this on the web
at http://www2.deasy.psu.edu/rps/sep98/swarm.html
Here is a detailed description of how the bees communicate their
choice of nest sites:
"The dancing bees, half a dozen, were rotating in place,
counter-clockwise on the surface of the swarm, pausing at the same
spot in each circuit to execute an exaggerated abdominal waggle. A
score of other bees followed each one intently, pushing forward,
nudging their heads close to the dancer's rear, 'reading' the dance
by sticking their antennae into the space directly behind the
dancer's wings. 'That's where they can best perceive the sound of the
wings' vibration," Camazine said. "They need to follow several
circuits in order to get the message.' " *4
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Citations:
*1) "The communicative meaning of body oscillations in the social
wasp, Polistes fuscatus." Savoyard, et al.
*2) "Patterns of buzz running, a pre-swarming behavior, in the
Neotropical wasp Parachartergus colopterus." Ezenwa, et al.
*3) "House-hunting by honey bee swarms: collective decisions and
individual behaviors." Camazine, et al.
*4) "The Mind of the Swarm" David Pacchioli (Research/Penn State,
Vol. 19, no. 3 (September, 1998))
http://www2.deasy.psu.edu/rps/sep98/swarm.html
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Peter Borst
Apiary Technician
Dyce Honeybee Lab
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
[log in to unmask]
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/plb6/
phone: 607 275 0266
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