Bad beehaviour; Entomology by general onefile:
The bumble bee has always fascinated me and that is why i have chosen to write my first article about a paper about bumble bee behaviour. Not only do i find it fascinating, it may be arguable that it once or still is a NZ icon:
Bad beehaviour; Entomology by general onefile:
Well i chose this article for a very specific reason; the name has a pun in it and i love puns. Although to be honest that was my first intention, this article was very interesting as well and that's really why i plan to talk about it. This article focuses on the behaviour of bumble bees; specifically their nectar robbing behaviour. It talks about experiments that were done to determine whether the nectar robbing behaviour is innate (inherited) or learned.
The article starts off by saying that most people (Including myself actually) think of the bumble bee as a charming little creature that's slightly absurd. But it also discusses the bumble from a plants point of view; Flowering plants (if they could think) must only think of them as annoying little thieves.
It then talks all about nectar robbery. Let me explain in lay man’s terms; honey bees and wasps collect nectar in flowers then fly off once they are done. Bumble bees on the other hand, do a little bit more damage, in some cases when a bumble bee is unable to collect the nectar it must drill a hole in the side of the flower to collect it. This is why they are bad from a plants point of view.
Scientists used to believe that learned behaviour only occurred in vertebrates. In this article they performed experiments to see if nectar robbing is learned. A team monitored bumble bees in 13 different meadows and watched a bumble bee until it had visited 20 flowers. They noticed that all the bumble bees drilled the hole on the left side of the flower. After a period of dormancy, and new bumble bees were born, the older bees continued to drill holes on the left side and the younger bees learned this behaviour from the other bees.
The article concluded that nectar robbing is a learned behaviour and not innate.The bees have, in other words, created a simple culture. It is a criminal culture, admittedly. But no one ever said that nature was pretty.
Reference: "Bad beehaviour; Entomology." The Economist 27 Apr. 2013: 75(US). General OneFile. Web. 8 May 2013.
This article can be read at
For more information on bumble bees, i recommend this site:
For more information on nectar robbing i recommend this site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nectar_robbing
Here's a video of nectar robbing to see what i'm talking about:
Thats interesting Chris, I was wondering if they did manipulative removal experiments? Like waiting for the juveniles to hatch, then removing the adults and seeing what the young do. Would they just wait till death by malnourishment or use other methods (as feeding is suggested to be innate) to acquire resources? Would that paint a clearer picture of this innate behaviour possibily?
ReplyDeleteHey Johnny
DeleteThere was some manipulative removal. But the juveniles would start off not nectar robbing, however when they found other bees they began to learn the behaviour. Also bumble bees do not have to rob flowers, they are quite capable of feeding like other bees, but for some reason they learn how to "Nectar rob" and choose to do this in some instances.
Thanks for the question - hope i answered it
I was wondering the same question as above. In addition, what implications could this have if older bees begin to die off (as we are having trouble with bee populations in the US)? Would the loss of knowledge serve problematic? Have plants developed any sort of adaptation to deal with this behavior (thicker cuticles etc.)? Could this prove to be an arms race between bees and plants?
ReplyDeleteHi Sara
DeleteLike i said above, the bumble bee does not have to nectar rob but it chooses to in some cases. I did a little more research and although bumble bees can and do rob from many other species of plant, they primarily do it on plants that's flowers are long and narrow as they are unable to obtain it normally. The bees are continually learning this behaviour so i do not believe that this knowledge will be lost. As for the race between plants and bumble bees, there are some plants with thicker cuticles, however there is no research (That i can find) that identifies any correlation between thicker cuticles and nectar robbing.
Thanks for the question, hope i helped
If someone looked at whether there is a characteristic about the plant or a particular style of flower (pun unintended, seriously!) that tends to be targeted, such as thin cuticles, then this could indicate if any adaptation by the plant could occur through selection for different styles. But if it's more down to the type of bumble species (eg a generalist, perhaps, which I'd imagine would be least affected by such outcomes), for which this beehaviour (it is hard to resist, isn't it) is most common, then I'd imagine that any adaptation would be less of an arms race and more of a balancing out on the bumble's part of how many flowers are robbed and how many are left, because otherwise they will eventually end up with no more plants to feed from.
DeleteAny idea as to why the left side was chosen by the bee's? It would be interesting to see if the juvenile bee's managed to feed in the same way if the adults were absent, as mentioned above.
ReplyDeleteHi Nick
DeleteThe left side is only chosen (Usually but not always) because they learn the behaviour from adult bees. Why they originally chose the left side i have no idea, maybe it happened once and continued to happen from then on.
Hope this helped
I'm just wondering what need there is of bumblebees to develop this behaviour in the first place?
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking as well, Chris, that it's probably a good idea to put that last sentence about the article's conclusion in quotation marks.