Abstract
SHOULD a honey bee (Apis mellifera) swarm emerge without a queen or its queen be unable to fly, the swarm soon returns to the parent colony. When the queen is taken from a swarm soon after it has settled, the bees usually become disturbed within 10–15 min1 and soon return to the old hive. Colonies deprived of hives and combs behave like swarms2, and were used in the present experiments. When such a colony was allowed to cluster on a branch clamped in a retort stand and its queen was taken away, the worker bees soon became restless, running about on the surface of the cluster, flying off and returning, apparently searching the immediate neighbourhood for the queen. The disturbance increased until most of the bees were taking part in it, and eventually, unless the queen was put back, all the bees (except those too young to fly) joined other colonies.
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References
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SIMPSON, J. Queen Perception by Honey Bee Swarms. Nature 199, 94–95 (1963). https://doi.org/10.1038/199094a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/199094a0
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