High frequency sounds produced by Cyprian honeybees<i>Apis mellifera cypria</i>when confronting their predator, the Oriental hornet<i>Vespa orientalis</i>

Papachristoforou, Alexandros; Sueur, Jérôme; Rortais, Agnès; Angelopoulos, Sotirios; Thrasyvoulou, Andreas; Arnold, Gérard

doi:10.1051/apido:2008027

Cited by 32 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Honeybees have been reported to produce piping sounds or 'hisses' when hornets are around, also described as 'shimmering' (Baracchi et al, 2010;Papachristoforou et al, 2008). Hissing seems to be an innate response to noxious stimuli, as this behaviour is also produced in response to electric shocks (Wehmann et al, 2015).…”

Section: Defence Against Other Insectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The defensive response of the honeybee Apis mellifera

Nouvian

Reinhard

Giurfa

2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

105

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Honeybees (Apis mellifera) are insects living in colonies with a complex social organization. Their nest contains food stores in the form of honey and pollen, as well as the brood, the queen and the bees themselves. These resources have to be defended against a wide range of predators and parasites, a task that is performed by specialized workers, called guard bees. Guards tune their response to both the nature of the threat and the environmental conditions, in order to achieve an efficient trade-off between defence and loss of foraging workforce. By releasing alarm pheromones, they are able to recruit other bees to help them handle large predators. These chemicals trigger both rapid and longer-term changes in the behaviour of nearby bees, thus priming them for defence. Here, we review our current understanding on how this sequence of events is performed and regulated depending on a variety of factors that are both extrinsic and intrinsic to the colony. We present our current knowledge on the neural bases of honeybee aggression and highlight research avenues for future studies in this area. We present a brief overview of the techniques used to study honeybee aggression, and discuss how these could be used to gain further insights into the mechanisms of this behaviour.

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Section: Defence Against Other Insectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The defensive response of the honeybee Apis mellifera

Nouvian

Reinhard

Giurfa

2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

105

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“…It has also been referred to as shimmering (Butler 1954;Seeley et al 1982), which describes the visual impression of coordinated wing movements (Hrncir et al 2005). Hissing behavior is observed in different honey bee species, such as A. cerana (Butler 1954;Sakagami 1960), A. florea (Sarma et al 2002), and A. mellifera (Papachristoforou et al 2008). Honey bees emit short buzz sounds or vibrations (0.5-1.0 s) during such behavior (Hrncir et al 2005;Fuchs and Tautz 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sound recordings of Apis cerana japonica colonies over 24 h reveal unique daily hissing patterns

et al. 2019

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The simultaneous wing movement by multiple worker bees in a colony produces a hissing sound, which is a novel acoustic and vibrational signal of the honey bees. Hissing of honey bees is thought to be a response to direct, threatening stimuli. However, we discovered Japanese honey bees (Apis cerana japonica ) can hiss even without obvious disturbances in previous study. In this study, to understand the temporal characteristics of honey bee hissing, we conducted 24-h sound recordings over 7 months in 2015 and investigated when A. cerana japonica hissed every day. Additionally, we also investigated the relationship of hissing onset and offset times with sunrise and sunset times, and environmental factors. We found that honey bees hiss daily during daytime and most frequently at dawn, with hissing onset/offset occurring mostly within 30 min of sunrise/sunset time. Hissing onset and offset were significantly related to sunrise and sunset times, respectively, and also to solar radiation intensity. The findings reveal that A. cerana japonica hissing has unique temporal patterns, and also shed a new light on vibrational collective behavior in honey bees. acoustic/vibrational behavior / Apis cerana japonica / hissing / honey bees / shimmering

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“…Perhaps the larger question is why Am (A. m. ligustica) does not show a stronger heatballing defence. Apis mellifera cypria and Apis mellifera caucasica have evolved with and form large heat balls around their common predator, Vespa orientalis (Kandemir et al, 2012;Papachristoforou, Rortais, Sueur, & Arnold, 2011;Papachristoforou et al, 2007Papachristoforou et al, , 2008. Similarly, A. m. ligustica forms defensive heat balls against a sympatric hornet predator, V. crabro (Baracchi, Cusseau, Pradella, & Turillazzi, 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Olfactory eavesdropping of predator alarm pheromone by sympatric but not allopatric prey

et al. 2018

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Eavesdropping is predicted to evolve between sympatric, but not allopatric, predator and prey. The evolutionary arms race between Asian honey bees and their hornet predators has led to a remarkable defence, heat balling, which suffocates hornets with heat and carbon dioxide. We show that the sympatric Asian species, Apis cerana (Ac), formed heat balls in response to Ac and hornet (Vespa velutina) alarm pheromones, demonstrating eavesdropping. The allopatric species, Apis mellifera (Am), only weakly responded to a live hornet and Am alarm pheromone, but not to hornet alarm pheromone. We observed typical hornet alarm pheromone-releasing behaviour, hornet sting extension, when guard bees initially attacked. Once heat balls were formed, guards released honey bee sting alarm pheromones: isopentyl acetate, octyl acetate, (E)-2-decen-1-yl acetate and benzyl acetate. Only Ac heat balled in response to realistic bee alarm pheromone component levels (<1 bee-equivalent, 1 mg) of isopentyl acetate. Detailed eavesdropping experiments showed that Ac, but not Am, formed heat balls in response to a synthetic blend of hornet alarm pheromone. Only Ac antennae showed strong, consistent responses to hornet alarm pheromone compounds and venom volatiles. These data provide the first evidence that the sympatric Ac, but not the allopatric Am, can eavesdrop upon hornet alarm pheromone and uses this information, in addition to bee alarm pheromone, to heat ball hornets. Evolution has likely given Ac this eavesdropping ability, an adaptation that the allopatric Am does not possess.

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High frequency sounds produced by Cyprian honeybeesApis mellifera cypriawhen confronting their predator, the Oriental hornetVespa orientalis

Cited by 32 publications

References 22 publications

The defensive response of the honeybee Apis mellifera

The defensive response of the honeybee Apis mellifera

Sound recordings of Apis cerana japonica colonies over 24 h reveal unique daily hissing patterns

Olfactory eavesdropping of predator alarm pheromone by sympatric but not allopatric prey

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