A HIGHLY SPECIALIZED WATER-COLLECTING HONEY BEE

Abstract

While monitoring the foraging behavior of a cohort of individually marked workers we noticed that one bee, Yellow 57 (Y57), took significantly more flights whose duration were significantly shorter and more constant than those taken by other members of the cohort. Y57’s unique flight activity suggested that she was either consistently foraging for food at a source close to her hive or collecting water. Inspection of a creek approximatively 0.5 km from Y57’s colony fortuitously resulted in spotting Y57 collecting water. Simultaneous monitoring of the colony entrance and the creek site indicated that Y57 collected water throughout the day and most likely specialized on water collection throughout her 14 day foraging career. These observations confirm that some honey bees do specialize exclusively on water collection.