Social Bees responding to Stressors

Abstract
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 Feb 9. pii: 201422089. [Epub ahead of print]
Rapid behavioral maturation accelerates failure of stressed honey bee colonies.
Perry CJ, Søvik E, Myerscough MR, Barron AB
Many complex factors have been linked to the recent marked increase in honey bee colony failure, including pests and pathogens, agrochemicals, and nutritional stressors. It remains unclear, however, why colonies frequently react to stressors by losing almost their entire adult bee population in a short time, resulting in a colony population collapse. Here we examine the social dynamics underlying such dramatic colony failure. Bees respond to many stressors by foraging earlier in life…”Precocious” foragers completed far fewer foraging trips in their life, and had a higher risk of death in their first flights…this individual reaction of bees to stress might impact colony performance. In the model, when forager death rates were chronically elevated, an increasingly younger forager force caused a positive feedback that dramatically accelerated terminal population decline in the colony. This resulted in a breakdown in division of labor and loss of the adult population, leaving only brood, food, and few adults in the hive…social processes (that) drive rapid depopulation of a colony…