Honey bees are fascinating creatures that display remarkably complex (and well-coordinated) social behaviors, all in the service of protecting and promoting the vitality of the hive.
One of the ways that honey bees practice good “public health” is by social distancing to slow the spread of disease, much in the same way that humans have been encouraged to socially distance in the COVID-19 era. But honey bees do it notably more efficiently and cooperatively.
Let’s get into the latest research looking into the remarkable social distancing behavior of honey bees, the reasons behind it, and how they coordinate it.
Recent Research Into Honey Bee ‘Lockdowns’
Italian researchers at the University of Sassari, in tandem with an international team of scientists, recently led a landmark study on honey bee behavior in times of pathogenic crisis.
The study’s co-author, Dr. Alessandro Cini of the UCL Centre for Biodiversity & Environment Research, summarized his team’s findings:
“Here we have provided the first evidence that honeybees modify their social interactions and how they move around their hive in response to a common parasite.
Honeybees are a social animal, as they benefit from dividing up responsibilities and interactions such as mutual grooming, but when those social activities can increase the risk of infection, the bees appear to have evolved to balance the risks and benefits by adopting social distancing.”
Honey Bees Are Highly Social Creatures
As the doctor noted above but which is worth emphasizing again, honey bees (like humans) are highly social creatures. They depend on each other heavily for their mutual welfare and for the hive to thrive.
In fact, honey bees are so extremely social – and their social arrangements so complex – that they have earned the rare biological designation of “eusociality”. Eusociality is the highest echelon of social organization, which consists of several core features:
- “The presence of several generations in a single nest at the same time”
- “Cooperation by some members of the society in caring for offspring that are not their own”
- “Division of labor with queens that reproduce a lot and workers that reproduce very little if at all”
Given their extreme sociality, the strict distancing measures that the honey bees implement to combat common parasites do come at a potentially high cost to the functionality of the hive. But they make that cost-benefit decision in favor of the long-term benefit of the whole.
The Specific Differences in Behavior Between Infected and Healthy Hives
The University of Sassari research team found specific instances of behavior modification that distinguish bee behavior under normal, healthy circumstances and their behavior under threat of an infectious parasite.
Honey bees, waggle dances, and social distancing
First, the honey bees in infected hives did not indulge in foraging dances (also called waggle dances). In these dances, honey bees convey the distance and direction of a needed resource (such as a foraging site) through movement. The length of the waggle run indicates the distance while the dancing bee angles itself according to the vertical to indicate the direction.
The intricate waggle run is an endless source of intrigue to those who study bees, such as how the receiving bee can discern the dancing bee’s movements even in darkness. Some research also indicates that non-dancing bees actually perform better in foraging than those who do the dance, which begs the question: is there some other poorly understood function at play as well?
Regardless of how effective the highly technical waggle dance actually is, the honey bees forego it in times of pathogenic peril.
Partitioning the queen and brood from potentially infected workers
Protecting the queen is job #1 in a beehive.
With that imperative in mind, another lockdown measures the honey bees institute is to cluster the adult bees (the workers) in the outer compartment of the colony and to sequester the queen and the brood – the most vital members of the colony for its continued survival – in the inner compartment.
In that way, any parasites present in the worker bees are less likely to find new hosts in the queen or the young, developing bees.
Suspending non-essential social activities
Lastly, honey bees in colonies with a common parasite infection will suspend non-essential social activities like mutual grooming.
While none of the social distancing methods above on their own are foolproof, in combination they work relatively well to combat pathogens that threaten the hive. Nonetheless, despite the bees’ best efforts, honey bee colonies can and often do fall prey to parasite infections.
What Are Common Honey Bee Parasites?
In addition to the threat posed by larger animals like bears and skunks, honey bees have two primary parasite foes:
- Varroa Mites: tick-like parasites that attach themselves externally to drone and worker honey bees. They feed on adult bees’ hemolymph – which can be conceptualized roughly as the bees’ “blood” – and the brood as they develop. The mites reproduce inside the developing brood cells and emerge with the young bee to look for new hosts. The mites, which originally were natural parasites of the Asian honey bee (Apis cerana) made their way into North American in the 80s.
- Tracheal Mites: parasites that attach themselves to the adult bee’s tracheal system. They have a preference for adults less than 4 days old. Like Varroa mites, they feed on the hemolymph. They lay their eggs inside of the bees’ tracheal system, which inhibits their ability to respirate, ultimately leading to their death. They can seriously hamper honey production as well as the colony’s capacity to survive through winter.
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