Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - 9:17 AM
1105

Recognition, communication and acquisition of social behaviors in honey bees

Hiromi Sasagawa, sasagawa@affrc.go.jp, Foundation for Advancement of International Science (FAIS), 586-9, Akatsuka Aza, Ushigafuchi, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan, Tatsuhiko Kadowaki, emi@nuagr1.agr.nagoya-u.ac.jp, Nagoya University, Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Furo-cho, Chigusa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, and Shigeru Matsuyama, honeybee@sakura.cc.tsukuba.ac.jp, University of Tsukuba, Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences and Bioengineering, 1-1-1 Ten nou dai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.

Social behaviors in honey bees can serve as models for investigating recognition and communications among intra- and interspecies as well as those towards environmental conditions. Semiochemicals play crucial roles in recognition and pheromones do in communication. Individual recognition and communications among colony members would lead to wide variety of social behaviors. In Japan, there are two Apis species, domestic honey bee (Apis cerana japonica Rad.) and imported honey bee, Apis mellifera L. Differences in behavioral repertory between these two honey bees were investigated in connection with differences in recognition and responses to semiochemicals.


Species 1: Hymenoptera Apidae Apis cerana japonica (Japanese honey bee)
Species 2: Hymenoptera Apidae Apis mellifera (European honey bee)