Читать книгу Honey Bee Medicine for the Veterinary Practitioner - Группа авторов - Страница 83

Complex social living necessitates a rich language, and the significant chemical language of social insects like the honey bee has been compared to the visual and auditory talents of the higher vertebrates (Bell and Carde’ 1984; Slessor et al. 2005). Thomas Seeley (1995) reached the ensuing insight during his long summers spent working on the remarkable social physiology of the honey bee colony: “… the system of control devices found in a honey bee colony is extremely sophisticated and endows a colony with exquisite powers of adaptive response, both to internal changes and to external contingencies.” Together with their notable dancing performances, chemical messages are fundamentally responsible for such extraordinary ability of the honey bee superorganism to adapt to changing conditions (Bortolotti and Costa 2014). However, it is the sociochemicals of the queen, adult worker bees, and brood that largely determine the complex social organization of the colony (Slessor et al. 2005; Jarriault and Mercer 2012).

Pheromones are chemical signals produced by a honey bee and released outside the body to effect a response (Free 1987; Slessor et al. 2005; Bortolotti and Costa 2014). These substances are used among colony members of all castes (queen, workers, drone, and brood) to coordinate hive activities. Such signals may be transferred via antennae contact, olfaction, food transfer, grooming, as well as trail marking or marking resources among others, and are involved in many functions including brood development, foraging, mating, defense, orientation, colony recognition, reproduction, swarming, and division of labor (Figure 4.3). Honey bees use two broad types of pheromones to communicate – primer and releaser pheromones (Free 1987; Slessor et al. 2005). A primer pheromone elicits a complex reaction in the receiver creating both behavioral and developmental changes. Such pheromones are important in the organization and cohesion of eusocial living and include the inhibition of reproduction; examples in the honey bee colony include the Queen Mandibular and Brood pheromones. Primer pheromones are well developed in social insects and act to maintain colony homeostasis. A releaser pheromone has a weaker effect and influences behavior only. Most worker bees utilize releaser pheromones for various hive functions including alarm and aggression, sex attraction, trail marking and recognition (Free 1987; Slessor et al. 2005). Importantly, pheromone communication within a honey bee colony is shaped by the complexity, synergy, context and dose of each signal and conveyed via both temporal and spatial distribution throughout the hive (Slessor et al. 2005).

Figure 4.3 Life inside a honey bee hive is complex with many work activities, behaviors and functions occurring among the various worker, drone, and queen bees. Such social living demands effective communication for survival. Many of the hive activities and the ability of a colony to adapt to changing conditions are shaped by the chemical language of honey bees; pheromones may elicit behavioral or developmental changes among bees to maintain colony homeostasis and guide these hive functions.

Source: © Lauren D. Sawchyn, DVM, CMI. Chapter: Physiology of the honey bee, authored by Rolfe M Radcliffe and illustrated by Lauren D. Sawchyn.