Communication and Bee Colonies by Dr Christoph grüter

This fascinating talk was exceptionally interesting for beekeepers not least for the many novel ideas and questions which arose from the differences between tropical stingless bees (Apis Meliponini melipona) and our more familiar honey bees (Apis mellifera mellifera).

In solving the complex problems of surviving within an ever changing and potentially hostile environment the different behaviours which have evolved were often amazing. Perhaps we have grown too accustomed to the ways of the honey bee to question its wisdom!

Christoph began by summarising the modes of communication used by bees: chemical pheromones, physical dance patterns, and vibrational acoustic bursts. Immediately the discrepancies between honey bees and their stingless cousins became apparent: stingless bees don't dance. Rather, they appear to deploy a pheromone trail to mark the route to and from forage. There is also evidence that the honey bee dance is less effective in the recruitment of other foragers than originally thought. Let me list some other eye-catching facts about stingless bees:

The Queens are massive. No marking with paint blobs required!

The Queens are monogamous, mating only once with a single drone. So no genetically provided behavioural variation within a colony.

The larval stage is closed, they rely on food already stuffed into their cells before the egg is laid.

They can have a special Guard caste in addition to Workers, Queens and Drones. In defence they use their strong mandibles to bite, having no stinger.

Worker laid Drones are a common occurrence.

For mating, the drones congregate together on vertical surfaces.

The swarming action is progressive, with bees exchanging over a period of time between the new and old colonies.

A young virgin Queen leads the new colony, leaving the old Queen behind.

The worker bees communicate about forage through bursts of sound.

Honey can be stored in large, round wax reservoirs next to the brood nest.

Comb is not reused, and each new brood cell is constructed and stuffed with food stock just before the Queen lays an egg in it.

Varroa has not infected stingless bees .... yet.

There are currently about 550 species of tropical stingless bees. I found the whole world of stingless bees thoroughly absorbing, offering new insights into the working of evolution. There is so much still to understand about  stingless bees which may help us with caring for our honey bees. The slide set used by Christoph is also available to download:

nsbk_2022_grueter.pdf
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Rob Williams
14/11/22