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First published online October 7, 2008
Journal of Experimental Biology 211, 3287-3295 (2008)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2008
doi: 10.1242/jeb.018994
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The mechanism of flight guidance in honeybee swarms: subtle guides or streaker bees?

Kevin M. Schultz1,*, Kevin M. Passino1 and Thomas D. Seeley2

1 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
2 Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA

* Author for correspondence (e-mail: schultzk{at}ece.osu.edu)

Accepted 20 August 2008

When a honeybee swarm takes off to fly to its new home site, less than 5% of the bees in the swarm have visited the site and thereby know in what direction the swarm must fly. How does the small minority of informed bees indicate the swarm's flight direction to the large majority of uninformed bees? Previous simulation studies have suggested two possible mechanisms of visual flight guidance: the informed bees guide by flying in the preferred direction but without an elevated speed (subtle guide hypothesis) or they guide by flying in the preferred direction and with an elevated speed (streaker bee hypothesis). We tested these hypotheses by performing a video analysis that enabled us to measure the flight directions and flight speeds of individual bees in a flying swarm. The distributions of flight speed as a function of flight direction have conspicuous peaks for bees flying toward the swarm's new home, especially for bees in the top of the swarm. This is strong support for the streaker bee hypothesis.

Key words: Apis mellifera, honeybee, honey bee, swarm, flying swarm, in-transit swarm


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Related articles in JEB:

STREAKER BEES STEER SWARM
Kathryn Phillips
JEB 2008 211: i. [Full Text]  



This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 J. Exp. Biol.Home page
K. Phillips
STREAKER BEES STEER SWARM
J. Exp. Biol., October 15, 2008; 211(20): i - ii.
[Full Text] [PDF]


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