Mortality rates of honey bees in the wild

Abstract

Abstract. Senescence, defined as an age-specific decrease in physiological performance accompanied by an increase in mortality rate, has been studied in a wide range of animals including social insects. It is not clear, however, whether honey bees in the wild live long enough to exhibit senescent decline. I tested for the effects of senescence on honey bees foraging in natural settings and documented the predicted pattern of exponential increase in mortality rate with forager age. These data indicate that, in spite of high rates of external mortality, senescence is an important factor determining the performance of insects such as honey bees in the wild.

Reproduction, social behavior, and aging trajectories in honeybee workers

“…This interpretation is corroborated by the type III survivorship (Fig. 4) and an initial mortality peak in foraging honeybee workers (Rueppell et al 2007, but see Dukas 2008). Our event history charts (Carey et al 2006) also show a concentration of nursing behavior at younger ages in both groups, with foraging activity increasing at older ages in the "forager" group.…”

“…Fanning is a homeostatic activity that is exhibited to regulate nest temperature (Winston 1987). It is conceptually related to flight, which may bear physiological costs (Dukas 2008;Neukirch 1982), but our results suggest the contrary. We also studied trophallaxis based on an expectation that it would affect worker longevity because it is a main route for resource transfer (Amdam and Page 2005).…”

Aversive conditioning in honey bees (Apis mellifera anatolica): a comparison of drones and workers

“…Foraging workers experience increased mortality rates as they age. Dukas (Dukas, 2008) argues both age-dependent and independent mortality rates are due primarily to predation and posits that learning contributes to some decrease in the observed agespecific mortality rate. Additionally, male honey bees experience similar increases in mortality rates once flight is initiated, which is, at least in part, attributed to predation (Rueppell et al, 2005); one should expect little to no difference it their ability to learn under this paradigm, as our results demonstrate.…”

Accelerated behavioural development changes fine-scale search behaviour and spatial memory in honey bees (Apis melliferaL)

“…We cannot fully exclude this possibility, but we consider it unlikely. Cognitive decline has only been reported in bees that have accumulated more than 2 weeks of foraging experience (Behrends et al, 2007;Scheiner and Amdam, 2009), which is longer than the average life expectancy for most forager bees (Dukas, 2008;Woyciechowski and Moron, 2009). In experiment 1, however, all bees were sampled within their first 3 days of foraging.…”

“…The sequence of tasks is predictable, with young adult bees working initially on in-hive tasks such as brood care and nest construction and commencing foraging later in life (Seeley, 1995). This is considered an adaptive behavioural strategy as foraging is the most high-risk of bees' roles (Dukas, 2008;Rueppell et al, 2007;Sakagami and Fukuda, 1968;Visscher and Dukas, 1997) and delaying high-risk tasks to later in a worker's life increases the total contribution of that worker to colony growth and reproduction (Jeanne, 1986;Tofilski, 2002;Woyciechowski and Moron, 2009). Foraging is also arguably the most energetically and cognitively demanding role for a social insect worker.…”