Abstract received after deadline; 6/16/03
In many social insects, the level of worker energy reserves is correlated with task performance in the colony: nest workers tend to have abundant stored lipid and protein, whereas foragers are depleted of these reserves. Our previous work has shown the lipid levels of worker honey bees are strongly associated with behavioral state. Individuals working in the nest have more lipid stores in the abdomen than foragers, and lipid depletion precedes the transition from hive work to foraging. The first objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that lipid depletion exerts a causal effect on the rate of behavioral maturation in honey bees. We experimentally manipulated the diet of young worker honey bees to alter patterns of lipid deposition and examined effects on the age at onset of foraging. Dietary manipulations included: pollen deprivation, feeding reduced-fat pollen, and feeding a drug (5-tetradecycloxy-2-furanocarboxylic acid) that interferes with lipid synthesis. The second objective of this study was to determine whether there is a relationship between worker social interactions, nutritional state, and behavioral maturation. Since older bees are known to inhibit the development of young bees into foragers, we asked whether this effect might be mediated nutritionally via the passage of food from old to young bees. This question was explored with several experiments that involved manipulation of both lipid stores and the social environment. The results of this study will help understand the role of nutrition in the regulation of division of labor.
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