As many of us know, Gro Amdam has spent years studying the unique aging patterns of honey bees. It is certainly not as simple as "bees wear themselves out". The real story is far more interesting, if more complex.

She states:
> Evolution of stage-dependent aging in non-reproducing individuals is not trivial to explain (Omholt and Amdam, 2004).

This means in plain English that there is no simple explanation for what we actually observe in bee colonies. (Of course, those that have not observed closely may be able to explain what they see in a simple manner, but that is a separate issue)

> Worker honey bees normally perform tasks in a sequence so that nursing inside the protected nest is conducted prior to more risky exterior hive activities such as guarding and foraging. However, foragers may revert to nurse-activity in response to demographic changes, and worker bees can also develop into a stress resistant survival form with a 10-fold increase in lifespan. 

> This elastic division of parental functions is believed to increase colony fitness. Further, it generates a stage-dependent trajectory of senescence that is difficult to address with established theories of aging. We show how a recent theory that includes resource transfers can be used to elucidate patterns of senescence in eusocial, non-reproducing individuals like the honey bee worker.

Intergenerational transfers may have decoupled physiological and chronological age in a eusocial insect
Gro V. Amdam, Robert E. Page Jr.
Ageing Research Reviews 4 (2005) 398–408

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm