The silent dances of the Himalayan honeybee, Apis laboriosa Wh Kirchner, C Dreller, A Grasser, D Baidya To cite this version: Wh Kirchner, C Dreller, A Grasser, D Baidya. The silent dances of the Himalayan honeybee, Apis laboriosa. Apidologie, Springer Verlag, 1996, 27 (5), pp.331-339. hal-00891377 HAL Id: hal-00891377 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00891377 Submitted on 1 Jan 1996 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Original article The silent dances of the Himalayan honeybee, Apis laboriosa WH Kirchner C Dreller A Grasser D Baidya3 1 Universität Konstanz, Fakultät für Biologie, 78434 Konstanz, Germany; 2 Department of Entomology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA; 3 Department of Biology, Kathmandu University, Kathmandu, Nepal (Received 25 February 1996; accepted 20 June 1996) Summary — Comparative studies of the mechanisms of information transfer in the dance language of honeybees have recently led to an evolutionary scenario, assuming that acoustic signals replace visual communication signals in species that are forced to communicate in the dark, either because of nesting in dark cavities like Apis mellifera and Apis cerana or because of nocturnal activity like Apis dor- sata. To test this idea, the dance language of the giant honeybee Apis laboriosa, which is closely related to Apis dorsata, but exclusively diurnal, was studied. We observed the dances, determined the flight range and recorded and analyzed acoustic signals emitted by worker bees. The dances of this species do not contain any acoustic signals, indicating that acoustic signalling of the location of food sources is indeed restricted to species which need to dance under low light intensities. The evolu- tionary implications are discussed. communication / sound / Asian honeybee / Apis laboriosa Honeybee foragers communicate distance Dance communication is found not only and direction of profitable food sources to in A mellifera but in all species of honey- their nestmates by means of their dance bees studied so far (Lindauer, 1956). Among language (von Frisch, 1965). In Apis mel- the open nesting species of Asian honey- lifera, it has been shown that the information bees, the dwarf honeybee Apis florea does is transmitted in the darkness of their nests not produce information coding dance through airborne sounds (Kirchner and sounds and presumably communicates the Sommer, 1992; Michelsen et al, 1992; location of food sources by means of visual Dreller and Kirchner, 1993a), which are per- signals (Towne, 1985), whereas the giant ceived by the dance attenders through honeybee Apis dorsata does emit dance Johnston’s organ, an auditory sense organ sounds which contain the information about located in the antennae (Dreller and Kirch- the location of the food source (Kirchner ner, 1993b). and Dreller, 1993). However, the probability of sound production, which is close to one in The purpose of the present study was A mellifera, turned out to be substantially therefore to observe the dances of A labo- lower in A dorsata, indicating that this riosa, compare the dance language of these species might be able to use both visual bees with the dances of other honeybee and acoustic signals. A dorsata forages and species and to clarify whether A laboriosa dances not only during the daytime, but also uses sound to communicate the location of during moon-lit nights (Dyer, 1985). Obser- feeding sites. vations of nocturnal dances of A dorsata revealed that the probability of dance sound production was significantly higher at night METHODS time than during the day (Kirchner and Dreller, 1993), supporting the hypothesis of The study was conducted in March 1995 in north- Towne that acoustic dance commu- (1985) east Nepal, close to the 8 586 m high Mount nication evolved in hon- signals might have Kantchenjunga (87’45"N, 27’30"E) at an eleva- eybees when they were forced to dance at tion of 2 100 m. A large colony of A laboriosa low light intensities. Smith 1871 (width and length of the comb both about 1.2 m) was found under an overhanging The Apis laboriosa, a giant honeybee, cliff about 150 m in a vertical cliff of a close relative of the lowland ledge high giant honey- deep river valley. In this area A laboriosa is geo- bee, A dorsata, can be found in the graphically separated from A dorsata. Further- Himalayan range at altitudes of 1 200 m to more, measurement of the cubital index of the 3 500 m (Sakagami et al, 1980; Roubik et al, wings revealed an extremely high cubital index 1985; Underwood, 1990). The species was of 17.5 ± 6.2 (n = 13), which is typical for A labo- first described by Smith in 1871, but there riosa and different from the cubital index of A dor- sata as et al was some discussion on the species sta- reported by Sakagami (1980). tus of this bee (Maa, 1953; Sakagami et al, Dances were observed through binoculars 1980; McEvoy and Underwood, 1988; Rut- from a distance of about 30 m. The dance tempo was determined by measuring the duration of tner, 1988, 1992; Smith, 1991), which was dance circuits with a stop watch, the directions considered as a mostly being subspecies indicated in the dances were estimated with a of A dorsata until quite recently. Many resolution of 15°. Individually marked bees were aspects of the biology of this bee, which trained to forage at an artificial feeding site, where lives in quite inaccessible places, are still 2 M sucrose was provided. Sound was recorded entirely unknown. This is especially true for using a pressure-sensitive and a velocity-sensitive the dance language of A laboriosa. microphone (previously used to record dance sounds of A mellifera (Michelsen et al, 1987)) on A laboriosa has never been found to be a digital audio tape recorder (Sony DAT recorder active at night and nocturnal activity would TCD-D3). Sounds of flying bees were recorded at seem to be quite unlikely because of low a distance of 1 m from the comb. Sounds emitted temperatures at night time. The dance lan- by bees standing on the comb were recorded at guage of this species is therefore especially a distance of 1-2 cm from the comb. Recorded sound were in the interesting, because it should allow a test signals analysed laboratory a CED 1401 interface and an of the hypothesis that acoustic communi- using laboratory IBM-compatible computer. cation of the location of feeding sites is an adaptation to foraging at low light intensi- ties. on the other acoustic com- If, hand, RESULTS munication of food sources already evolved in a common ancestor of the genus Apis and the silent dances of A florea were a During 8 days of observation of the colony derived trait, one would expect acoustic we observed intense foraging and dancing dance signals to be present in A laboriosa. activity. The main activity time of the bees was between 900 and 1600 hours, depend- in A mellifera could be heard from time to ing on the weather conditions. Returning time. An example of such a signal is shown forager bees advertised a number of differ- in figure 2. This signal was produced by ent feeding sites, mostly nectar sources, at bees standing close to the dancer, pre- different distances and directions. The pat- sumably emitted as a begging signal. tern of feeding sites indicated in a sample of 93 dances recorded on three consecutive days is indicated in figure 1a. The durations DISCUSSION of the dance circuits ranged from 2.0 to 11.1 s with a mean of 4.8 ± 1.8 s. 1b Figure The main result of the is the shows the distribution of circuit durations in present study lack of dance sounds in the dance commu- this of dances. with the sample Compared nication of A laboriosa. As the distribution of circuit durations found for A system recording system used in A laboriosa was dorsata in India in a previous study, there the same as in previous studies of the dance was a significant difference in that the dance sounds of other honeybee species, it was circuits of A laboriosa lasted longer on aver- obviously suitable to detect dance sounds, age. As it turned out to be impossible to and as stop and noise train the bees to an artificial feeder at dis- signals background were recorded and of similar amplitude as in tances further than 50 m, we could not deter- other of the was mine the distance dialect of A laboriosa. species honeybees, system also the There- Assuming the distance dialect is similar to operating during recordings. fore we can exclude the possibility that the the distance dialect of A dorsata, we can lack of dance sounds is due to calculate the distances inferred by the inappropriate, insensitive or dancers. The mean distance would then be malfunctioning equipment. Dance sounds have been described inde- about 700 m, the longest distance indicated in A mellifera Esch and by the dancers about 2 km. pendently by (1961) Wenner (1962). These sounds are produced In all species of honeybees found to pro- by dorsoventral vibrations of the wings in duce dance sounds studied so the fre- far, round and wagging dances (Kirchner et al, of the dance sounds is similar to quency 1988) and are exclusively airborne sounds the of beat in There- frequency wing flight.