Apis mellifera
- Configural perception of a binary olfactory mixture in honey bees, as in humans, rodents and newborn rabbits
Highlighted Article: Mixing odorants together sometimes gives rise to utterly new perceptive qualities. A mixture that is treated in such a configural way by humans, rabbits and rodents also possesses this quality for an invertebrate, the honeybee.
- Drinking made easier: honey bee tongues dip faster into warmer and/or less viscous artificial nectar
Summary: Fluidic modelling and theoretical analysis of the honey bee feeding mechanism reveals an adaptation strategy in which bees respond to variation in nectar properties by regulating dipping frequency.
- Use of temporal and colour cueing in a symbolic delayed matching task by honey bees
Summary: Honey bees can learn arbitrary relationships between shapes and colours, but not between shapes and durations of light, indicating a lower efficiency of temporal information as a cueing stimulus.
- Wind and obstacle motion affect honeybee flight strategies in cluttered environments
Summary: To approach moving obstacles, honeybees reduce speeds in still air but increase speeds in wind. To transit obstacles, bees reduce speeds in still air but alter flight paths in wind.
- Sex-specific molecular specialization and activity rhythm-dependent gene expression in honey bee antennae
Summary: Gene expression differences between honey bee male (specialist) and female (generalist) antennae identify differences in molecular specialization and reveal new genes involved in odorant detection.
- Spontaneous quantity discrimination of artificial flowers by foraging honeybees
Summary: Honeybees exhibit a range of numerical abilities following dedicated training; as shown here, they also demonstrate a limited spontaneous ability to discriminate different quantities of artificial flowers.
- Honeybees fail to discriminate floral scents in a complex learning task after consuming a neonicotinoid pesticide
Summary: Honeybees exposed to the neonicotinoid pesticide thiamethoxam cannot perform a complex learning task. Honeybees exposed to other neonicotinoids such as imidacloprid and clothianidin, can learn this task, but at a slower rate.
- Honey bee caste lipidomics in relation to life-history stage and the long life of the queen
Summary: The extraordinary difference in lifespan between honey bee castes may be partially explained by oxidative damage as a result of the diet-induced increase in membrane polyunsaturated fatty acids in workers.
- Honeybees generalize among pollen scents from plants flowering in the same seasonal period
Summary: The proboscis extension response of honey bees was conditioned using different pollen scents, then tested with novel pollen scents. Honey bees generalized the pollen scents from plants that share the same flowering period.
- Exosome-like vesicles in Apis mellifera bee pollen, honey and royal jelly contribute to their antibacterial and pro-regenerative activity
Summary: Apis mellifera honeybee hypopharyngeal gland secretions contain exosome-like vesicles, which contribute to their antibacterial and pro-regenerative activity.