Bumblebees get by with a little help from their friends

Bumblebees

21 June 2005

Bumblebees are often thought of as the more introverted cousins of honeybees, since they do not have an elaborate dance ‘language’ with which to tell nest-mates where to find food. But researchers at Queen Mary, University of London have now shown that this reclusive reputation may be undeserved.

Bumblebees do not find nectar-filled flowers entirely by themselves, but instead ‘copy’ the choices of other bees - perhaps a sneaky shortcut to returning home with a full load.

In a paper published in the June edition of Current Biology, Elli Leadbeater and Dr Lars Chittka allowed bumblebees to choose between a group of artificial inflorescences (small groups of flowers on a stalk) in a laboratory flight arena. All the inflorescences contained equally high amounts of sugar solution for the bees to collect and bring back to their colony. They found that bees strongly preferred to feed from inflorescences where another bee was already collecting nectar, rather than making their own independent choices.

Most interestingly, the bees only copied each other when they knew nothing about the flower species that they were visiting. If bees chose to revisit a familiar species which they had tried before, they selected a flower to forage from on their own initiative. It seems that when stepping into the unknown, bumblebees preferred to stick with those options that had been tried and tested by others. 

Why visit inflorescences that other bees are foraging on? Bumblebees looking for food in the wild must test a multitude of different flowers to find the food rewards that they are searching for- an arduous process when carried out alone. By ‘spying’ on other foragers who have found nectar-rich inflorescences, bees might be slyly speeding up the search.

Elli Leadbeater, PhD student in the bee sensory and behavioural ecology unit, explained: "Bumblebees in the wild have a daunting task to achieve, because flower nectar levels are often unpredictable, and each forager will have to try out many empty flowers in the course of their search. We don't yet know if bees improve their success rates by copying the choices of others, but bees that do this might have learnt an efficient shortcut to success.

"This is particularly surprising because until now, other bees have been thought of as more of a deterrent than an attractant, since they leave small scent marks on flowers which dissuade new visitors,” adds Elli. “Our findings show that this is far from being the whole story."

‘Success is no secret: a new mode of information transfer in bumblebees?’ is published in the current edition (21 June) of Current Biology: Volume 15 (12). Visit: http://www.current-biology.com/

For further information, please contact:

Siân Wherrett
Communications Officer
Queen Mary, University of London
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7882 7454
email: s.wherrett@qmul.ac.uk

Notes to Editors:

• The School of Biological Sciences
  The School of Biological Sciences is a dynamic department with 37 academic staff and over 500 undergraduate and postgraduate students.
  Researchers carry out nationally and internationally renowned research, studying basic mechanisms and processes of life from the molecule to the ecosystem. Staff research interests fall into four broad areas; Aquatic and whole organism biology; Evolutionary genetics; Neuronal and hormonal signalling; and Protein structure and function.
  The School recently launched the Centre for Life Sciences to facilitate research at the level of the molecule, the cell and the whole organism. The Centre is funded by a grant from the Science Research Infrastructure Fund and equipped with state-of-the-art analytical equipment.

Queen Mary, University of London

• Queen Mary is one of the leading colleges in the federal University of London, with over 11,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students, and an academic and support staff of around 2,600.

• Queen Mary is a research university, with over 80 per cent of research staff working in departments where research is of international or national excellence (RAE 2001).  It has a strong international reputation, with around 20 per cent of students coming from over 100 countries.

• The College has 21 academic departments and institutes organised into three sectors: Science and Engineering; Humanities, Social Sciences and Laws; and the School of Medicine and Dentistry.

• It has an annual turnover of £200 million, research income worth £43 million, and it generates employment and output worth nearly £400 million to the UK economy each year.

• Queen Mary’s roots lie in four historic colleges: Queen Mary College, Westfield College, St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College and the London Hospital Medical College.

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