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The Red Dwarf honeybee ('Apis florea') is one of two basal species in the genus 'Apis. A. florea' differs from the well-studied Western Hive bee ('Apis mellifera') in that it nests in the open rather than in cavities. This fundamental difference in nesting biology is likely to have implications for nest-site selection, the process by which a reproductive swarm selects a new site to live in. In 'A. mellifera', workers show a series of characteristic behaviors that allow the swarm to select the best nest site possible. Here, we describe the behavior of individual 'A. florea' workers during the process of nest-site selection and show that it differs from that seen in 'A. mellifera'. We analyzed a total of 1,459 waggle dances performed by 197 scouts in five separate swarms. Our results suggest that two fundamental aspects of the behavior of 'A. mellifera' scouts -the process of dance decay and the process of repeated nest site evaluation- do not occur in 'A. florea'. We also found that the piping signal used by 'A. mellifera' scouts to signal that a quorum has been reached at the chosen site, is performed by both dancing and non-dancing bees in 'A. florea'. Thus, the piping signal appears to serve a different purpose in 'A. florea'. Our results illustrate how differences in nesting biology affect the behavior of individual bees during the nest-site selection process. |
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