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Food Sharing

Bee Sipping Nectar Together

The Uses of Food Sharing

In the bee colony, eating food appears to be more than just getting nutrition. It is a social activity that helps to keep the bees together. Although worker bees can feed themselves from honey in cells, they often feed each other. Queen and drone bees rarely a help themselves to food in the hive. They depend on the workers to feed them. In fact, when the workers stop feeding the drones at the end of the summer, the drones starve. Workers accept food from other workers even when they are near nectar cells and could help themselves. This suggests that it is not just hunger that makes them share food. Food sharing takes place very often among worker bees. This can be demonstrated by feeding a drop of harmless radioactive nectar to one bee. Twenty four hours later 80 % of the bees in the colony are radioactive due to food exchange. Food sharing, in fact, can be thought of as a form communication because any materials in the food are soon communicated to every bee in the hive. Workers that wish to receive food seem to signal this to other workers in the following way. The two workers come together and tap each others antennae. The offering bee forces nectar or honey from its honey stomach to the area of its mouth parts. The receiving bee takes the small drop with its mouth parts. Many chemical "messages" probably are communicated by sharing food, but most food-sharing messages are still a mystery. Food exchange also takes place when a food collector returns to the colony. The bee may give its load of nectar to the bees in the hive that are almost old enough begin collecting food.

Fresh nectar appears to make the bees pay attention to the experienced bee as it dances or wags its message. This way the bees of the hive learn the odor, flavor and location of the food that they will soon fly off to find. Workers that are not old enough to go out and collect food also receive nectar from returning food gatherers and store it in the honey comb cells. Food sharing seems to happen only with nectar. Pollen is not shared. Workers that need pollen take it from storage cells.

More About Division of Labor

The day to day job of running the nest is carried out by thousands of worker bees that form various "task forces". The task force to which any particular bee belongs depends on its ability to do the job, and this depends on its age. The youngest workers clean cells and make them ready for eggs. After a few days they are old enough to start to feed pollen and nectar to the older bee larvae. They feed the youngest larvae with milk that is made in a gland in their head. When their milk gland stops working, they stop feeding the larvae and begin to receive nectar brought back by the food gatherers. The nectar is stored in cells, where it is changed slowly into honey. At this time, they also pack down the pollen in the cells where it has been stored by food gatherers. When worker bees are about 13 days old, they cooperate in building comb. Later, when their wax glands stop working, they guard the entrance to the nest, defending it from insects and other small animals that might eat the food and larvae. Finally, they prepare for food gathering first making short flights outside the hive, to get to know the area, and their leaving in search of flowers. The beesā€™ way of dividing up work according to age ensures that each necessary task will always have bees to do it.


Acknowledgements

The Bees section was created with special thanks to Louis Juers (Arizona State Parks & Trails) for providing information used in this section. Additional information and digital materials were obtained from some of the following organizations. We would like to thank them for all their dedication and hard work within their profession.


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