The burden of bee-ing an undertaker
(This story appeared on page 200 of the
Sept. 27, 1997, Science News.)
By Sid Perkins
Science News
It's a dirty job, but some bee's got to do it.
Entomologist Gene E. Robinson and his colleagues at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign say that bees which serve as "undertakers" --
removing dead bees from the hive -- appear to be a distinct cadre of
developmentally advanced, midcareer workers. Undertaker bees,
which make up only 1 percent of the population at any time,
perform their thankless function for only a day or so, then move
on to forage before their peers do, the researchers report in the
September BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY.
The study provides the first close look at the undertaker bee's lot in
life. The scientists identified the undertakers, marked them with colored,
numbered plastic tags, and monitored their development.
Like most advanced social insects, bees display temporal polyethism, a
tendency to perform different sets of tasks at different ages. In
general, young bees work near the center of the hive. Middle-age bees,
those 14 to 24 days past the pupa stage, keep busy near the hive's
periphery, building honeycomb, storing food, and, for some, dragging
out bodies. Older bees work outside the hive, mainly
as foragers. Former undertakers begin foraging outside the hive 2 or 3
days ahead of other bees.
Robinson 's earlier work showed that some bees are genetically
inclined to serve as undertakers. He also found that some undertakers
are less efficient than others and their performance doesn't seem to
get better with experience.
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Copyright 1997 by Science Service.
All rights reserved.
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