The Foraging Behavior of the Honey Bee (Apis mellifera, L.)

The Foraging Behavior of the Honeybee (Apis mellifera, L.) provides a scholarly resource for knowledge on the regulation, communication, resource allocation, learning and characteristics of honeybee foraging behavior at the individual and colony level. Foraging, in this context, is the exploration of the environment around a honey bee hive and the collection of resources (pollen, nectar, water, etc.) by bees in the worker caste of a colony. Honeybees have the unique ability to balance conflicting and changing resource needs in rapidly changing environments, thus their characterization as “superorganisms” made up of individuals who act in the interest of the whole.

This book explores the fascinating world of honey bees in their struggle to obtain food and resources in the ecosystem and environment around the hive. Written by a team of international experts on honey bee behavior and ecology, this book covers current and historical knowledge, research methods and modeling used in the field of study and includes estimates of key parameters of energy utilization, quantities of materials collected, and identifies inconsistencies or gaps in current knowledge in the field.

"...an introduction to the foraging ecology of the world’s dominant pollinating insect, the western honey bee....The introductory chapter is especially good [and] includes an especially complete illustration and table detailing important clades from the ancestral Hymenoptera, through the origin of true bees from ammoplanine (thrips hunting) wasps, and up to the groups within the family Apidae, tribe Apini, and species of the largely paleotropical honey bee genus Apis. Geological time estimates, and supporting references, are given for these evolutionary changes that are rarely present in other volumes on honey bees and their biology.... Another excellent discussion is Chapter 6 on pollination ecology...." —Stephen L. Buchmann, The Quarterly Review of Biology