Swarming Honey Bees Guided by Pheromones1

The Natural History of the Flight ofHoney Bee Swarms

“…2 shows that in both flights the island swarm traversed the first 30 m with an average velocity of just slightly over km/h. This slow start may reflect the swarm's checking for the airborne presence of the queen, signalled by the odor of (E)-9-oxodec-2-enoic acid (Avitabile et al 1975), or the difficulty of getting the thousands of bees moving en masse in the proper direction, or both. Immediately after lift-off the swarm cloud was circular in horizontal cross-section, with a diameter of about 10 m, as estimated from the 30-m-spaced stakes along the flight path.…”

Queen-produced volatiles change dynamically during reproductive swarming and are associated with changes in honey bee (Apis mellifera) worker behavior

“…Several studies have elucidated the behavioral signals that are produced by workers to regulate the swarming process (reviewed by Seeley 2010 andGrozinger et al 2014). However, queens also produce pheromonal signals that are known to trigger the initiation of new queen rearing in preparation for swarming (Fefferman and Starks 2006;reviewed in Grozinger et al 2014) and to keep flying and clustered swarms cohesive (Butler et al 1964;Butler and Simpson 1967;Avitabile et al 1975;Winston et al 1982). Although it is not known Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13592-015-0358-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.…”

“…whether queens play an active role in coordinating swarming, workers in a swarm will not form a bivouac or relocate to a new nest site unless their queen joins them (Avitabile et al 1975;Pierce et al 2007), which suggests that queen-derived signals might help to coordinate these group transitions. In this study, we investigated the pheromone profiles of swarming queens, and the response of workers to volatiles from swarming and non-swarming queens, to determine whether dynamic changes in queen volatiles occur as queens swarm and whether such changes are linked to the behavior of swarming workers.…”

“…Airborne swarms span larger areas if they are queenless (Morse 1963;Beekman et al 2006). Swarming workers will also return to their queen if she is prevented from flying with them, and will readily relocate if the queen is moved short distances from the bivouac (Avitabile et al 1975;Morse 1963;Simpson 1963). Interestingly, a queenless swarm will not return to the parental hive or will lose cohesion if a swarming worker is marked with 9-ODA, which suggests that queens signal their presence in part with this main component of QMP (Avitabile et al 1975).…”

“…Swarming workers will also return to their queen if she is prevented from flying with them, and will readily relocate if the queen is moved short distances from the bivouac (Avitabile et al 1975;Morse 1963;Simpson 1963). Interestingly, a queenless swarm will not return to the parental hive or will lose cohesion if a swarming worker is marked with 9-ODA, which suggests that queens signal their presence in part with this main component of QMP (Avitabile et al 1975). Similarly, swarms are attracted to, and cluster stably around, lures impregnated with 9-ODA, 9-HDA, and QMP (Butler et al 1964;Butler and Simpson 1967;Winston et al 1982).…”