... of metabolic tasks between organelles, cells, organs and, in the case of eusocial organisms, between the individuals that comprise the ‘superorganism’. Exemplifying this, nurse honey bees maintain high abdominal lipids, while foragers have very low lipid stores, likely contributing to efficient performance...

... and a two-choice flight tunnel paradigm to examine thousands of foraging flights performed by hundreds of bumblebees flying upwind and downwind. In contrast to the preference for flying with a tailwind (i.e. downwind) displayed by migrating insects, we found that bees prefer to fly upwind. Bees maintained...

...Linzi J. Thompson; Jane C. Stout; Dara A. Stanley ABSTRACT Fungicides and herbicides are two of the most heavily applied pesticide classes in the world, but receive little research attention with regards to their potential impacts on bees. As they are not designed to target insects, the mechanisms...

... amino acids to lipid or ∼1.25:1 protein to fat. Bees fed diets relatively high in fat gained abdominal fat and had enlarged hypopharyngeal glands. In most cases, eating diets high in fat did not result in increased mortality. Importantly, we also discovered that the total quantity of food the bees ate...

...Théo Robert; Elisa Frasnelli; Thomas S. Collett; Natalie Hempel de Ibarra ABSTRACT Female bees and wasps demonstrate, through their performance of elaborate learning flights, when and where they memorise features of a significant site. An important feature of these flights is that the insects look...

... expansion during their approach. However, it is unclear whether insects employ this strategy when faced with challenging flight environments. Here, we tested the effects of wind on bumblebees ( Bombus impatiens ) landing on flowers. We find that bees' approach paths to flowers shift from multidirectional...

... and proportion of dietary EAAs. When bees consumed caseinate-containing diets in a range of ratios between 1:250 and 1:25 (protein to carbohydrate), they achieved an intake target (IT) of 1:149 (w/w). In contrast to those fed protein, bees fed the EAA diets had an IT more biased towards carbohydrates (1:560 w/w...

...Vivek Nityananda; Jonathan G. Pattrick SUMMARY Visual search is well studied in human psychology, but we know comparatively little about similar capacities in non-human animals. It is sometimes assumed that animal visual search is restricted to a single target at a time. In bees, for example...

...Adrian G. Dyer; David W. Griffiths SUMMARY Visual perception is a primary modality for interacting with complex environments. Recent work has shown that the brain and visual system of the honeybee is able, in some cases, to learn complex spatial relationships, while in other cases, bee vision...

...Richard P. Berry; William T. Wcislo; Eric J. Warrant SUMMARY Growing evidence indicates that insect ocelli are strongly adapted to meet the specific functional requirements in the environment in which that insect lives. We investigated how the ocelli of the nocturnal bee Megalopta genalis...

...J. Martínez-Harms; A. G. Palacios; N. Márquez; P. Estay; M. T. K. Arroyo; J. Mpodozis SUMMARY It has been argued that trichromatic bees with photoreceptor spectral sensitivity peaks in the ultraviolet (UV), blue and green areas of the spectrum are blind to long wavelengths (red to humans). South...

...Adrian Horridge SUMMARY The compound eye of the bee is an array of photoreceptors, each at an angle to the next, and therefore it catches an image of the outside world just as does the human eye, except that the image is not inverted. Eye structure,however, tells us little about what the bee...

...Eric J. Warrant SUMMARY In response to the pressures of predation, parasitism and competition for limited resources, several groups of (mainly) tropical bees and wasps have independently evolved a nocturnal lifestyle. Like their day-active (diurnal)relatives, these insects possess apposition...

...William F. Towne; Christopher M. Baer; Sarah J. Fabiny; Lisa M. Shinn SUMMARY Spatial orientation in the social insects offers several examples of specialized learning mechanisms that underlie complex learning tasks. Here we study one of these systems: the processes by which honey bees update...

...,wingbeat frequency showed a slight but significant increase, and metabolic expenditure per wingbeat showed a corresponding slight but significant decrease. Bees spent an average of 52% of the measurement period in flight,with 19 of 78 bees sustaining uninterrupted voluntary flight for periods of>1 min...

...Brendan J. Borrell; Matthew J. Medeiros SUMMARY To test whether variation in muscle efficiency contributes to thermal stability during flight in the orchid bee, Euglossa imperialis , we measured CO 2 production, heat loss and flight kinematics at different air temperatures ( T a ). We also examined...

...Stephen P. Roberts; Jon F. Harrison; Robert Dudley SUMMARY We assessed the energetic and aerodynamic limits of hovering flight in the carpenter bee Xylocopa varipuncta . Using normoxic, variable-density mixtures of O 2 , N 2 and He, we were able to elicit maximal hovering performance...

...Michael E. Dillon; Robert Dudley SUMMARY The ability of orchid bees to generate vertical forces was evaluated using a load-lifting method that imposed asymptotically increasing loads during ascending flight, ultimately eliciting maximum forces while hovering. Among 11 orchid bee species varying...

...G. Adrian Horridge SUMMARY Early measurements of the resolution of horizontal versus vertical gratings were confirmed, with a limit near a period of 2.5°, and the resolution is similar when vertical or horizontal gratings are tested separately against grey. Bees were next trained to discriminate...

...Stephen P. Roberts; Jon F. Harrison; Neil F. Hadley ABSTRACT Thermoregulation of the thorax is critical for bees and other endothermic insects to achieve high rates of flight muscle power production. However, the mechanisms allowing insects to regulate thorax temperatures during flight are not well...