Measurements of Stinging Behaviour in Individual Worker Honeybees (<i>Apis Mellifera</i> L.)

Kolmes, Steven A.

doi:10.1080/00218839.1989.11100824

Cited by 22 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…4A) (Núñez et al, 1983), as well as in its free-walking equivalent, the Petri dish assay (Fig. 4B) (Kolmes and Fergusson-Kolmes, 1989), stinging is provoked by electric shocks. These assays can be used to measure a threshold voltage at which the bees start responding (Balderrama et al, 2002;Kolmes and Njehu, 1990;Núñez et al, 1998;Paxton et al, 1994).…”

Section: Individual Assaysmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A major constraint to the study of the elements modulating and underlying the honeybee's defensive behaviour has been the lack of reliable methods to quantify this behaviour (Guzman-Novoa et al, 1999;Kolmes and Fergusson-Kolmes, 1989;Shorter and Rueppell, 2012;Uribe-Rubio et al, 2008). Field assays are influenced by numerous uncontrolled environmental conditions, causing huge variability across trials (Guzman-Novoa et al, 1999, 2003Southwick and Moritz, 1987).…”

Section: Assessing Aggression Experimentallymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They are, however, necessary to study aggression in its natural context. Laboratory-based assays are better controlled and provide more detailed information about the behaviour of individual bees, but they sometimes use stimuli that are difficult to relate to those occurring in the field, such as electric shocks (Kolmes and Fergusson-Kolmes, 1989;Núñez et al, 1983). Here, we summarize these techniques and suggest ways to improve the assessment of aggression in order to facilitate its study.…”

Section: Assessing Aggression Experimentallymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The honeybee is placed on this surface under a Petri dish cover. The bee receives a shock when she contacts adjacent wires simultaneously (while walking), and can react by stinging the suede patch (Kolmes and Fergusson-Kolmes, 1989). (C) Setup to assess the stinging response to alarm pheromones (from Tel-Zur and .…”

Section: Individual Assaysmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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: Individual Assaysmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Assessing Aggression Experimentallymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Assessing Aggression Experimentallymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Individual Assaysmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The defensive response of the honeybee Apis mellifera

Nouvian

Reinhard

Giurfa

2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

105

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“…Shock can be applied in several ways depending upon the requirements of the experiment. For example, in a place learning assay, a grid based on the design of Kolmes et al (1989) was effective (Agarwal et al 2011). If the researcher wants to prepare grids from metal rods, the rods need to be cleaned, because oil or other material on the surface of the rods will interfere with the flow of current.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Standard methods for behavioural studies ofApis mellifera

Scheiner

Abramson

Brodschneider

et al. 2013

Journal of Apicultural Research

146

131

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SummaryIn this BEEBOOK paper we present a set of established methods for quantifying honey bee behaviour. We start with general methods for preparing bees for behavioural assays. Then we introduce assays for quantifying sensory responsiveness to gustatory, visual and olfactory stimuli. Presentation of more complex behaviours like appetitive and aversive learning under controlled laboratory conditions and learning paradigms under free-flying conditions will allow the reader to investigate a large range of cognitive skills in honey bees. Honey bees are very sensitive to changing temperatures. We therefore present experiments which aim at analysing honey bee locomotion in temperature gradients. The complex flight behaviour of honey bees can be investigated under controlled conditions in the laboratory or with sophisticated technologies like harmonic radar or RFID in the field. These methods will be explained in detail in different sections. Honey bees are model organisms in behavioural biology for their complex yet plastic division of labour. To observe the daily behaviour of individual bees in a colony, classical observation hives are very useful. The setting up and use of typical observation hives will be the focus of another section. The honey bee dance language has important characteristics of a real language and has been the focus of numerous studies. We here discuss the background of the honey bee dance language and describe how it can be studied. Finally, the mating of a honey bee queen with drones is

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Intra-colonial variation of the sting extension response in the honey bee Apis mellifera

et al. 2006

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The workers' sting extension in response to noxious stimulations is a common test used to study physiological modulations of behaviour in the honey bee. In this study, we investigated the variation of the sting extension response between honey bee workers from different patrilines in a colony with a naturally mated queen. We found that the sting extension response varied according to patrilines, indicating a genetic contribution to the intra-colonial variation of this behaviour. Patrilines differed in their responses during successive stimulations applied at a constant level: bees belonging to some patrilines exhibited a constant level of response during repeated stimulations, while others showed a decreasing response under the same conditions. These results fi t well with the models of division of labour based on differences in response thresholds among workers of different subfamilies.

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Measurements of Stinging Behaviour in Individual Worker Honeybees (Apis Mellifera L.)

Cited by 22 publications

References 31 publications

The defensive response of the honeybee Apis mellifera

The defensive response of the honeybee Apis mellifera

Standard methods for behavioural studies ofApis mellifera

Intra-colonial variation of the sting extension response in the honey bee Apis mellifera

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