The place Big Honey Bees Relaxation Their Wings Throughout Annual Migration

In a brand new research printed within the open-access Journal of Insect Science, a bee researcher describes the invention of a “stopover” web site in Thailand the place Apis dorsata honey bee swarms collect to relaxation throughout their annual migration between highland and lowland nesting websites. Proven here’s a swarm “bivouac” resting on the underside of a mango tree limb on the stopover web site. (Picture initially printed in Robinson 2021, Journal of Insect Science)

By Ed Ricciuti

Ed Ricciuti

It actually took numerous sweat and a few worrying a few attainable snake within the grass, but it surely paid off for a scientist from Wyoming, whose analysis beefs up proof that conservation of migratory insect pollinators hinges as a lot on the ecological integrity of pit stops throughout their journey as situations at both finish.

“I sweated and sweated, and was normally drenched in my very own sweat, my shorts soaked by means of, by mid-day, and since the grass and weeds grew lengthy I anxious about venomous snakes,” says Will Robinson, Ph.D., emeritus teacher of biology at Casper Faculty, of his subject work in Thailand finding out Apis dorsata, recognized by many as the enormous honey bee. It’s a key pollinator of southern Asia, not domesticated however nonetheless an necessary supply of untamed honey. Robinson’s analysis is described in a paper printed in November 2021 within the Journal of Insect Science, a part of a particular assortment on basic and utilized facets of honey bee biology.

Colonies of large honey bees migrate with the monsoon season, forwards and backwards between highland and lowland nesting websites. Robinson noticed that the migrating bees often use a mango orchard in northern Thailand on the similar time yearly as a stopover bivouac to relaxation and replenish earlier than persevering with on their journey. His discovery of the stopover web site in 2009 marked the primary one ever documented for the species. It stays so, however he believes many others exist.

In a brand new research printed within the open-access Journal of Insect Science, bee researcher Willard Robinson, Ph.D., describes the invention of a “stopover” web site in Thailand the place Apis dorsata honey bee swarms collect to relaxation throughout their annual migration between highland and lowland nesting websites. Right here, Robinson observes a bee “bivouac” in a tree within the mango orchard on the stopover web site. (Picture courtesy of Willard Robinson, Ph.D.)

Robinson’s subsequent treks to the orchard on the backside of a steep valley alongside the Pai River after his discovery of the bee relaxation space demonstrated that bivouacking by A. dorsata bees there was not a one-off occasion. “Bivouacking bees occupied virtually exactly the identical geographical space in 2016 as in 2009 and 2010,” Robinson writes in his report. “Timing of the stopovers was additionally remarkably related. … In 2010 the primary bivouac arrived 22 September, and subject work was terminated with 5 bivouacs nonetheless on the web site on 19 November; in 2016 occupation of the location lasted from 18 September to 18 November.” He known as “the sturdy year-to-year constancy that migrating bees confirmed” to the location “essentially the most salient outcome” of this analysis.

Bicycling to his analysis space from the provincial capital of Mae Hong Son, within the Shan Hills on the Myanmar border, Robinson often patrolled the location and its environment. He discovered that swarms of bees arrived and departed steadily till the tip of November—the beginning of the dry season, when teak and Eucalyptus, a key meals supply, cease blooming and begin shedding leaves.

In 2016, bee researcher Willard Robinson, Ph.D., recorded the visits of Apis dorsata honey bee swarms to a “stopover” web site in Thailand the place they paused to relaxation throughout their annual migration between highland and lowland nesting websites. A complete of 49 swarms arrived to type “bivouacs” on the web site between mid-September and mid-November, with a median keep of seven days. (Picture initially printed in Robinson 2021, Journal of Insect Science)

Colonies usually migrate to benefit from blooming at totally different altitudes of the flowering crops that present their eating regimen of nectar and pollen. In northern Thailand, not less than, it seems A. dorsata colonies transfer to greater elevations to extend colony inhabitants and reproduce by swarming with the onset of the dry season, then returning to decrease elevations to construct one other nest, develop, and swarm once more within the moist season.

Like many different pollinators, Apis dorsata as a species reveals indicators of declining, in its case on account of overharvest by honey hunters and felling of the tall tropical bushes by which they nest. Proof that stopovers are important to large honey bee survival ought to assist conservation of the species, Robinson says.

“My research might maintain nice significance for the conservation of this charismatic and economically necessary pollinator and honey producer. Chicken biologists are discovering rising proof that there isn’t any conservation of imperiled species with out understanding their complete life historical past, together with not simply the place they nest and overwinter however exactly the place their migratory travels take them in between. The identical would apply to large honey bees.”

Robinson says that the stopover he found deserves everlasting safety, whereas questioning what number of different such undiscovered key stopovers have been eradicated by deforestation. A search ought to be mounted for different websites that exist, he says, notably alongside rivers the place landmarks doubtless happen and between well-known nesting websites at seasons when the bees are on the transfer.

Related to a provincial agricultural middle, the orchard by which Robinson sweated out his days within the subject provides all the weather of prime habitat for the massive bees, that are greater than a half-inch lengthy. It has teak and Eucalyptus crops that yield meals, a river for water, and a deep valley with slopes coated by teak forest that would function a landmark for the bee vacationers. The mangoes and different bushes additionally shade the world to a level that the bees want.

Whereas observing Apis dorsata honey bee swarms at a “stopover” web site in Thailand, researcher Willard Robinson, Ph.D., famous that every swarm’s departure was preceded by a number of bees, usually an aged employee bee (at middle, proven right here) performing a waggle dance that appeared to point the departure path and, presumably, distance. (Picture initially printed in Robinson 2021, Journal of Insect Science)

As he noticed the bees—fastidiously, as a result of they’re a sensitive breed—Robinson seen some tantalizing clues to their conduct related to migration. He watched bees that appeared to have scouted out the following cease alongside the best way carry out a waggle dance in entrance of others, much like the figure-eight efficiency by which honey bees which have returned from foraging sign to others the path and distance to meals sources.

“About 10 bees at a time observe every of the dancers very carefully,” he writes. “The dances convey extraordinarily precisely the path of the upcoming flight; there may be some controversy about whether or not migration dances point out the space to be flown. My information counsel, and my feeling is, that they do, not less than roughly.”

Dances had been carried out by 5 to twenty bees at a time, a few half hour earlier than the flight departed. It appeared {that a} quick dance in time meant a brief flight distance. The scouts, he found, had been older bees, whose yellow markings flip to orange with age.

Robinson photographically tracked bees as they aged. It appears attainable, he says, that some bees might stay the six months or so wanted to recollect the path to a migration web site and transmit that info to others. The connection between longevity and migration, he says, deserves additional research. Past that, he urges exploration for different relaxation stops alongside migration paths of large honeybees on the whole, noting that “there could also be a task for citizen science in such searches.”

Ed Ricciuti is a journalist, writer, and naturalist who has been writing for greater than a half century. His newest guide is named Bears within the Yard: Large Animals, Sprawling Suburbs, and the New City Jungle (Countryman Press, June 2014). His assignments have taken him around the globe. He makes a speciality of nature, science, conservation points, and regulation enforcement. A former curator on the New York Zoological Society, and now on the Wildlife Conservation Society, he could be the solely man ever bitten by a coatimundi on Manhattan’s 57th Road.