Temperature correlated dorse-ventral abdomen flipping of Apis laboriosa and Apis dorsata worker bees

摘要

Observations were conducted in Nepal, on A. laboriosa nests in the Himalayas, and A. dorsata in Rampur, Chitwan,, At low temperatures, A. laboriosa worker bees of the whole nest curtain repeatedly raised the abdomen up and down with its tip at the peak up to 30-40°C. Frequency of those movements was correlated with ambient temperature. With the increase in temperature, from 10 °C to 17 °C, the percentage of workers performing the temperature correlated dorso-ventral abdomen flipping (AF) droppedsignificantly from 51.4% to 7.5%. The duration of particular AF decreased from 0.62 s at 10 °C to 0.27 s at 17 °C. The workers repeated successive AF every 1.75 s at 10 °C and every 6,00 s at 17 °C A. dorsata performed similar movements. However, theduration of single AF was shorter in A dorsata than in A. laboriosa, and A. dorsata repeated those movements more frequently than A. laboriosa.