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Honeybee nestmate recognition: the thermal behaviour of guards and their examinees

Anton Stabentheiner^*, Helmut Kovac and Sigurd Schmaranzer

Institut für Zoologie, Universität Graz, Universitätsplatz 2, A-8010 Graz, Austria

View larger version (92K): [in a new window]   Fig. 1. Colour thermograms of guard bees and their examinees at the hive entrance. (A1, A2) Increase in thorax temperature during a heating phase of an examinee (E) as a reaction to a long-lasting examination (duration >30 s) by guards (G). In contrast to the examinee, the guards did not heat up; time difference between thermograms A1 and A2 is 1 min 24 s. (B) Cooling of the proboscis of an examinee by regurgitated fluid during tongue stropping in the course of a thoracic heating phase. Ambient air temperature: 18.5°C.

View larger version (12K): [in a new window]   Fig. 2. (A—E) Sample curves of the thorax temperature of guard bees and their examinees at the hive entrance during interactions of more than 30 s duration. Note the phases of intense thoracic heating of the examinees, but not of the guards, in all curves except for C. Ambient air temperature: 25.5-30.7°C.

View larger version (25K): [in a new window]   Fig. 3. Relative frequency of examinees where the largest change of thorax temperature during examinations of medium (10-30 s) or long (>30 s) duration was a phase of thoracic heating (Tths>+2°C), approximately constant temperature (Tths±2°C) or cooling (Tths<-2°C). 100 % = 34 examinees and 66 examinees for durations of 10-30 s and >30 s, respectively.

View larger version (21K): [in a new window]   Fig. 4. Sample curves of the thorax temperature of guard bees and their examinees (dancing foragers) inside an observation hive. These examinees heated their thorax immediately after the guards had made contact with them (E1, 4 s; E2, 1 s). E1 was a forager dancing for a natural source of nectar (Stabentheiner, 2001), and E2 was a marked forager dancing for 1 mol l-1 sucrose on a feeding place 500 m south of the hive (Stabentheiner et al., 1995). Air temperature near the bees for E1, 34.0°C; for E2, 29.7°C.