How honeybees respond to heat stress from the individual to colony level

Jhawar, Jitesh; Davidson, Jacob D.; Weidenmüller, Anja; Wild, Benjamin; Dormagen, David M.; Landgraf, Tim; Couzin, Iain D.; Smith, Michael L.

doi:10.1098/rsif.2023.0290

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 61 publications

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“…How do bees inside the dark nest entrain onto a circadian rhythm? If the Zeitgeber was an abiotic factor, such as light diffusing from the entrance (instantaneous), or floral odors spreading (within milliseconds), or temperature [13], we might also expect a reduced prominence in circadian rhythm with increasing distance from the entrance, but we would expect the rhythm to be synchronized. Therefore, we hypothesized that circadian entrainment could be caused by physical interaction among bees.…”

Section: Local Interactions Yield Speed Transfersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collective flow of circadian clock information in honeybee colonies

Mellert,

Kłos,

Dormagen

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Honeybee colonies exhibit a collective circadian rhythm reflecting the periodic dynamics of the environment. Thousands of workers, including those engaged in in-hive tasks, must synchronize in various processes that may be rhythmic, such as nectar inflows, or non-rhythmic, such as brood care but it remains unknown how those different rhythms are integrated into a colony-level circadian rhythm. Using an AI-driven automated tracking system, we obtained uninterrupted long-term tracking of all individuals in two honeybee colonies. We demonstrate that circadian rhythmicity is present across all age groups and that this rhythm is entrained into all individuals, however, with peak activity shifting by up to 2 hours in workers furthest from the entrance. Extensive data analysis and an agent-based model suggest that mechanical interactions between individuals facilitate the transfer of movement speed, and hence Zeitgeber information. Finally, we show that this speed transfer leads to a collective slow wave of activity that initiates at the nest entrance, spreading throughout the nest. This simple mechanism, workers bumping into each other, enables colonies to entrain their rhythm to the daily cycle of the external environment and, because of the spatial organization of the nest, activates different groups of workers sequentially. The speed transfer interactions demonstrate a tightly-tuned mechanism that underlines the elegant self-organization of the superorganism.

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Section: Local Interactions Yield Speed Transfersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collective flow of circadian clock information in honeybee colonies

Mellert,

Kłos,

Dormagen

et al. 2024

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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The effect of major abiotic stressors on honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) queens and potential impact on their progeny

Amiri,

Abou-Shaara,

McAfee

2024

Apidologie

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Queen health and quality play a significant role in the survival, expansion, and productivity of honey bee colonies. Nevertheless, modern beekeeping practices, intensified agriculture, and climate change can leave queens vulnerable to diverse stressors. These stressors can exert a negative impact on queens, resulting in a range of morphological and physiological abnormalities. The repercussions of queen stress may not only cause direct impacts on her survival and performance, but it may also extend to the offspring of surviving queens through transgenerational mechanisms. Here, we review the current knowledge regarding the effects of major abiotic stressors (namely, nutrition, pesticides, and extreme temperatures) on queen health and their potential impacts on the queen’s progeny. Gaining insight into the effects of these factors across individual and colony levels is vital for prioritizing further research on queen and colony health.

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How honeybees respond to heat stress from the individual to colony level

Jhawar,

Davidson,

Weidenmüller

et al. 2023

J. R. Soc. Interface.

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A honey bee colony functions as an integrated collective, with individuals coordinating their behaviour to adapt and respond to unexpected disturbances. Nest homeostasis is critical for colony function; when ambient temperatures increase, individuals switch to thermoregulatory roles to cool the nest, such as fanning and water collection. While prior work has focused on bees engaged in specific behaviours, less is known about how responses are coordinated at the colony level, and how previous tasks predict behavioural changes during a heat stress. Using BeesBook automated tracking, we follow thousands of individuals during an experimentally induced heat stress, and analyse their behavioural changes from the individual to colony level. We show that heat stress causes an overall increase in activity levels and a spatial reorganization of bees away from the brood area. Using a generalized framework to analyse individual behaviour, we find that individuals differ in their response to heat stress, which depends on their prior behaviour and correlates with age. Examining the correlation of behavioural metrics over time suggests that heat stress perturbation does not have a long-lasting effect on an individual’s future behaviour. These results demonstrate how thousands of individuals within a colony change their behaviour to achieve a coordinated response to an environmental disturbance.

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How honeybees respond to heat stress from the individual to colony level

Cited by 7 publications

References 61 publications

Collective flow of circadian clock information in honeybee colonies

Collective flow of circadian clock information in honeybee colonies

The effect of major abiotic stressors on honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) queens and potential impact on their progeny

How honeybees respond to heat stress from the individual to colony level

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