Octopamine influences honey bee foraging preference

Abstract

Colony condition and differences in individual preferences influence forage type collected by bees. Physiological bases for the changing preferences of individual foragers are just beginning to be examined. Recently, for honey bees octopamine is shown to influence age at onset of foraging and probability of dance for rewards. However, octopamine has not been causally linked with foraging preference in the field. We tested the hypothesis that changes in octopamine may alter forage type (preference hypothesis). We treated identified foragers orally with octopamine or its immediate precursor, tyramine, or sucrose syrup (control). Octopamine-treated foragers switched type of material collected; control bees did not. Tyramine group results were not different from the control group. In addition, sugar concentrations of nectar collected by foragers after octopamine treatment were lower than before treatment, indicating change in preference. In contrast, before and after nectar concentrations for bees in the control group were similar. These results, taken together, support the preference hypothesis.

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

“…Much of what is known about these mechanisms comes from work related to the Pavlovian conditioning of the PER. Issues with PER conditioning, and recent work on the role of biogenic amines in reward and punishment pathways, has stimulated the search for new conditioning paradigms in the area of aversive conditioning (Kaczer and Maldonado, 2009;Abramson et al, 2011;Agarwal et al, 2011;Vergoz et al, 2007;Giray et al, 2007).…”

Measuring individual locomotor rhythms in honey bees, paper wasps and similar sized insects

“…Given that age is a major regulator of the circadian system in honey bees (Moore et al, 1998), this may be another source of variation. An additional factor could be that specialized water-, pollen -, nectarand/or propolis-foraging individuals may be present within our sample (Page et al, 2006;Giray et al, 2007). Despite the fact that foraging specialization and age may be different, no studies have dissected the effect of forager age and specialization on circadian periodicity.…”

“…To ensure the capture of foragers, an 8-mesh wire screen (3.2×3.2 mm mesh size) was placed in the entrance of the hive and incoming foragers were allowed to climb inside plastic vials where they were captured, in a similar fashion as in Giray et al (Giray et al, 2007). After capture, foragers were provided food and water during transportation to the UPR Rio Piedras campus, which took between 30 and 45 min.…”

Learning, gustatory responsiveness and tyramine differences across nurse and forager honeybees

“…The differential effects on [cAMP] i of the two tyramine receptors and most of the honeybee octopamine receptors might explain why in some situations, octopamine acts similarly to tyramine, such as in assays involving gustatory responsiveness, in which octopamine and tyramine both increased responsiveness (Scheiner et al, 2002) or aversive learning, in which both octopamine and tyramine can reduce learning performance, although the tyramine effect was very weak (Agarwal et al, 2011). In experiments investigating honeybee foraging behaviour, both tyramine and octopamine showed the trend to induce foragers to collect more dilute nectar or water (Giray et al, 2007), which was probably related to the increased gustatory responsiveness of the bees due to these amines (Scheiner et al, 2002). In contrast, in other experiments investigating phototaxis of honeybee foragers, tyramine and octopamine had opposite effects (Scheiner et al, 2014b).…”