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Bee Behaviour*

Abstract

FOR many years of has been realized that a well developed social organisation is exhibited by every colony of honey-bees. We now know, thanks to the work of G. A. Rösch and others, that a highly efficient division of labour exists among the worker bees of a colony, and that each worker bee has her own particular part to play in the economy of her oolony. The nature of the duty which a worker performs at atny given time is very largely, but not entirely, determined by her age, or, more correctly, by that state of physiological development to which she has attained at the time. But there are no hard and fast rules. If insufficient bees of nursing age are present to feed all the larvae properly, the period of nursing is extended ; similarly, if more than sufficient house-bees are present, their time is not wasted, and the position is readjusted by surplus house-bees becoming foragers at an earlier age than usual. The precise mechanism by means of which such adjustments are made is not yet fully understood.

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Butler, C. Bee Behaviour*. Nature 163, 120–122 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/163120a0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/163120a0

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