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Book Cover
E-book
Author Seeley, Thomas D., author.

Title The wisdom of the hive : the social physiology of honey bee colonies / Thomas D. Seeley
Published Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1995

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Description 1 online resource (xiv, 295 pages) : illustrations (some color)
Contents Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- Part I. Introduction -- 1. The issues. 1.1. The evolution of biological organization ; 1.2. The honey bee colony as a unit of function ; 1.3. Analytic scheme -- 2. The honey bee colony. 2.1. Worker anatomy and physiology ; 2.2. Worker life history ; 2.3. Nest architecture ; 2.4. The annual cycle of a colony ; 2.5. Communication about food sources ; 2.6. Food collection and honey production -- 3. The foraging abilities of a colony. 3.1. Exploiting food sources over a vast region around the hive ; 3.2. Surveying the countryside for rich food sources ; 3.3. Responding quickly to valuable discoveries ; 3.4. Choosing among food sources ; 3.5. Adjusting selectivity in relation to forage abundance ; 3.6. Regulating comb construction ; 3.7. Regulating pollen collection ; 3.8. Regulating water collection ; Summary -- Part II. Experimental Analysis -- 4. Methods and equipment. 4.1. The observation hive ; 4.2. The hut for the observation hive ; 4.3. The bees ; 4.4. Sugar water feeders ; 4.5. Labeling bees ; 4.6. Measuring the total number of bees visiting a feeder ; 4.7. Observing bees of known age ; 4.8. Recording the behavior of bees in the hive ; 4.9. The scale hive ; 4.10. Censusing a colony -- 5. Allocation of labor among forage sites. How a colony acquires information about food sources. 5.1. Which bees gather the information? ; 5.2. Which information is shared? ; 5.3. Where information is shared inside the hive ; 5.4. The coding of information about profitability ; 5.5. The bees' criterion of profitability ; 5.6. The relationship between nectar-source profitability and waggle dance duration ; 5.7. The adaptive tuning of dance thresholds ; 5.8. How a forager determines the profitability of a nectar source ; Summary ; How a colony acts on information about food sources. 5.9. Employed foragers versus unemployed foragers ; 5.10. How unemployed foragers read the information on the dance floor ; 5.11. How employed foragers respond to information about food-source profitability ; 5.12. The correct distribution of foragers among nectar sources ; 5.13. Cross inhibition between forager groups ; 5.14. The pattern and effectiveness of forager allocation among nectar sources ; Summary -- 6. Coordination of nectar collecting and nectar processing. How a colony adjusts its collecting rate with respect to the external nectar supply. 6.1. Rapid increase in the number of nectar foragers via the waggle dance ; 6.2. Increase in the number of bees committed to foraging via the shaking signal ; How a colony adjusts its processing rate with respect to its collecting rate. 6.3. Rapid increase in the number of nectar processors via the tremble dance ; 6.4. Which bees become additional food storers? ; Summary -- 7. Regulation of comb construction. 7.1. Which bees build comb? ; 7.2. How comb builders know when to build comb ; 7.3. How the quantity of empty comb affects nectar foraging ; Summary -- 8. Regulation of pollen collection. 8.1. The inverse relationship between pollen collection and the pollen reserve ; 8.2. How pollen foragers adjust their colony's rate of pollen collection ; 8.3. How pollen foragers receive feedback from the pollen reserves ; 8.4. The mechanism of indirect feedback ; 8.5. Why the feedback flows indirectly ; 8.6. How a colony's foragers are allocated between pollen and nectar collection ; Summary -- 9. Regulation of water collection. 9.1. The importance of variable demand ; 9.2. Patterns of water and nectar collection during hive overheating ; 9.3. Which bees collect water? ; 9.4. What stimulates bees to begin collecting water? ; 9.5. What tells water collectors to continue or stop their activity? ; 9.6. Why does a water collector's unloading experience change when her colony's need for water changes? ; Summary -- Part III. Overview -- 10. The main features of colony organization. 10.1. Division of labor based on temporary specializations ; 10.2. Absence of physical connections between workers ; 10.3. Diverse pathways of information flow ; 10.4. High economy of communication ; 10.5. Numerous mechanisms of negative feedback ; 10.6. Coordination without central planning -- 11. Enduring lessons from the hive -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary This book describes and illustrates the results of more than fifteen years of elegant experimental studies conducted by the author to investigate how a colony of bees is organized to gather its resources. The results of his research - including studies of the shaking signal, tremble dance, and waggle dance - offer the clearest, most detailed picture available of how a highly integrated animal society works
Analysis Bees
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-289) and index
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
English
Print version record
digitized 2011 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
Subject Honeybee -- Food
Honeybee -- Behavior
Bees
Behavior, Animal
SCIENCE -- General.
Honeybee -- Behavior
Honeybee -- Food
Genre/Form Domestic fiction
Domestic fiction.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780674043404
0674043405