Communication in Bees

[gavin]

I promised the audiences of this talk a list of videos they could look at again:

Grooming:



Dorso-ventral abdominal vibration signal:



Heater bees (the long version):



Waggle dance:



The Tom Seeley swarming videos:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/series/5/

The Stop signal:



Waving in Apis dorsata to repel predators:



Waving to synchronise attack on Giant hornet in Apis cerana:



Virgin queen piping:



Enjoy!

Gavin

[gavin]

Last night I forgot to return to the first video and ask the good folk of Ayrshire what they could now see in that first video. Any takers? We discussed the begging for grooming (sideways flicking) and the response of the groomer (grooming!), but not other interactions in the video.

Next stop Kilbarchan - but I can't remember when!

[EmsE]

I'd better not look then. Don't want to spoil the surprise . The talk is on the 2nd Tuesday in March. Looking forward to it.

[gavin]

Thanks!

[Rosie]

I have looked at a few of them so far but noticed one surprising comment on the heater bee video. It was stated that scouts live up to 10 times longer than foragers. Has anyone else ever heard that one before? Is there a grain of truth in it?

Rosie

[gavin]

(close your eyes Ems)

That is the one thing in there that I'm not sure about either. They were advised by Jurgen Tautz' lab, so you'd expect it to be correct, but it does seem an incredible claim.

[Rosie]

I remember when Bill Oddie did a piece about bumble bees on Springwatch. His researchers had consulted the BBKA and by the time it got to his delivery he got bumblebees and honey bees mixed up and started talking rubbish. I suspect something similar has happened here. They got their scouts mixed up with their queens. The original information provided by Tautz's lab was probably correct.

Rosie

[gavin]

Yes, sounds feasible. Ten times 6 weeks isn't far from the average life of a queen in a swarmy Carniolan colony.

[gavin]

Lovely to meet the happy beekeepers of Kilbarchan tonight (I drove home safely by the way). There are two forum posters in this cheery bunch. Intelligent, questioning beekeepers and nearly beekeepers every one.





Only Peter was missed by the camera.

[EmsE]

Hi Gavin,
That was a really enjoyable talk -thank you,
and certainly worth not peeking at the videos before hand. Good to hear you got back safely. When I went to post this last night the forum was down and thought it would either be the influx of new kilbarchan forum members joining after being encouraged to do so, or that you were uploading the photo's..