Effect of the own colony odor on olfactory and thermal preferences of the honeybee (Apis mellifera) workers

Abstract

Honeybee foragers were tested on their preference for the own colony odor either separately, in an olfactometer, or in combination with their temperature preference, in thermal gradient chambers, where their motor activity was also recorded. The bees in the gradient chambers were either deprived of their colony odor for 9 days or exposed to the odor during the experimental days 4–9. The source of odor was wax from the own colony. Bees were attracted by the odor, and this attraction culminated at night. Thermal preference and motor activity fluctuated in a circadian rhythm both in absence and in combination with the own colony odor but there was an upward drift of both variables in bees deprived of the odor. The data are discussed on the background of detrimental effects of isolation from the own colony odor possibly indicating an age related phenomenon.