How honeybees respond to heat stress from the individual to colony level
Jitesh Jhawar, Jacob D. Davidson, Anja Weidenmüller, Benjamin Wild, David M. Dormagen, Tim Landgraf, Iain D. Couzin, Michael L. Smith – 2023
A honey bee colony functions as an integrated collective, with individuals coordinating their behaviour to adapt and respond to unexpected disturbances. Nest homeostasis is critical for colony function; when ambient temperatures increase, individuals switch to thermoregulatory roles to cool the nest, such as fanning and water collection. While prior work has focused on bees engaged in specific behaviours, less is known about how responses are coordinated at the colony level, and how previous tasks predict behavioural changes during a heat stress. Using BeesBook automated tracking, we follow thousands of individuals during an experimentally induced heat stress, and analyse their behavioural changes from the individual to colony level. We show that heat stress causes an overall increase in activity levels and a spatial reorganization of bees away from the brood area. Using a generalized framework to …