Reddit Reddit reviews The Biology of the Honey Bee

We found 2 Reddit comments about The Biology of the Honey Bee. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

Science & Math
Books
Biological Sciences
Biology
Entomology
The Biology of the Honey Bee
Harvard University Press
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2 Reddit comments about The Biology of the Honey Bee:

u/svarogteuse · 3 pointsr/Beekeeping

>The median age of the swarm bees was lower than that of the colony bees, that of the scouts was higher than that of the swarm bees, and that of the scouts was slightly less than that of the foragers.

Source more details in the paper, and sources for others who have done similar research.

I don't recall any details on swarm ages in The Biology of the Honey Bee by Winston, but I know he has a number of tables for ages of other activities and its likely the most accessible being an in print book rather than an article in a journal you likely don't get so I'd start there.

u/scottish_beekeeper · 1 pointr/Beekeeping

The drone endophallus removal is from multiple sources, including Winston and Seely, and is found in lots of papers as 'fact', such as: "we
nevertheless assume that not every drone leaves the bulb of endophallus in the sting chamber to be subsequently removed by the queen and/or the next drone." (Woyke, J. "Anatomo-physiological changes in queen-bees returning from mating flights, and the process of multiple mating." Bull. Acad. Polon. Sci 4 (1956): 81-87).

The above (admittedly old) paper states that a proportion of mated queens return with no endophallus present, but none were found with multiple present. I'd be interested to see references for drones not performing active removal, since that would imply returning queens might have multiple present.

The UV info I originally sourced from Winston, but further digging seems to show that the endophallus does not emit light in and of itself, but rather the mucus produced is highly reflective of UV light, which attracts drones. (G. Koeniger. "The role of the mating sign in honey bees, Apis mellifera L.: does it hinder or promote multiple mating?." Animal behaviour 39.3 (1990):444-449.)