Research & Development World

  • R&D World Home
  • Topics
    • Aerospace
    • Automotive
    • Biotech
    • Careers
    • Chemistry
    • Environment
    • Energy
    • Life Science
    • Material Science
    • R&D Management
    • Physics
  • Technology
    • 3D Printing
    • A.I./Robotics
    • Software
    • Battery Technology
    • Controlled Environments
      • Cleanrooms
      • Graphene
      • Lasers
      • Regulations/Standards
      • Sensors
    • Imaging
    • Nanotechnology
    • Scientific Computing
      • Big Data
      • HPC/Supercomputing
      • Informatics
      • Security
    • Semiconductors
  • R&D Market Pulse
  • R&D 100
    • Call for Nominations: The 2025 R&D 100 Awards
    • R&D 100 Awards Event
    • R&D 100 Submissions
    • Winner Archive
    • Explore the 2024 R&D 100 award winners and finalists
  • Resources
    • Research Reports
    • Digital Issues
    • R&D Index
    • Subscribe
    • Video
    • Webinars
  • Global Funding Forecast
  • Top Labs
  • Advertise
  • SUBSCRIBE

RFID tags on honey bees reveal hive dynamics

By R&D Editors | July 23, 2014

The radio frequency identification (RFID) tag allowed researchers to determine that some foraging bees are much more active than others. Image: Tom Newman, Robinson Bee LaboratoryScientists attached radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags to hundreds of individual honey bees and tracked them for several weeks. The effort yielded two discoveries: Some foraging bees are much busier than others; and if those busy bees disappear, others will take their place.

The findings are reported in Animal Behaviour.

Tagging the bees revealed that about 20% of the foraging bees in a hive brought home more than half of the nectar and pollen gathered to feed the hive.

“We found that some bees are working very, very hard—as we would have expected,” said Univ. of Illinois Institute for Genomic Biology director Gene E. Robinson, who led the research. “But then we found some other bees that were not working as hard as the others.”

Citizen scientist Paul Tenczar developed the technique for attaching RFID tags to bees and tracking their flight activity with monitors. He and Neuroscience Program graduate student Claudia Lutz measured the foraging activities of bees in several locations, including some in hives in a controlled foraging environment. Vikyath Rao, a graduate student in the laboratory of U. of I. physics professor Nigel Goldenfeld, analyzed the data using a computer model Rao and Goldenfeld developed.

Previous studies, primarily in ants, have found that some social insects work much harder than others in the same colony, Robinson said.

“The assumption has always been that these ‘elite’ individuals are in some way intrinsically better, that they were born that way,” he said.

While it’s well known that genetic differences underlie differences in many types of behavior, the new findings show that “sometimes it is important to give individuals a chance in a different situation to truly find out how different they are from each other,” Robinson said.

Removal of the elite bees “was associated with an almost five-fold increase in activity level in previously low-activity foragers,” the researchers wrote. The change occurred within 24 hrs, Tenczar said. This demonstrates that other individuals within the hive also have the capacity to become elites when necessary, Robinson said.

“It is still possible that there truly are elite bees that have some differential abilities to work harder than others, but it’s a larger group than first estimated,” Robinson said. “Or it could be that all bees are capable of working at this level and there’s some kind of colony-level regulation that has some of them working really, really hard, making many trips while others make fewer trips.”

Perhaps the less-busy bees function as a kind of reserve force that can kick into high gear if something happens to the super-foragers, Robinson said.

“Our observation is that the colony bounces back to a situation where some bees are very active and some are less active,” he said. “Why is that? We don’t know. Do all bees have that capability? We still don’t know.”

Source: Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Related Articles Read More >

Caltech, Fermilab, and collaborators test quantum sensors for future particle physics experiments
2025 R&D layoffs tracker: 83,543 and counting
NSF layoffs in 2025: Deep budget cuts headed for U.S. research sector
GMT141_01_19_Bob Hines_1037_Boeing Starliner Arrival
Newly revealed details on Boeing Starliner’s mission highlight systemic engineering challenges
rd newsletter
EXPAND YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND STAY CONNECTED
Get the latest info on technologies, trends, and strategies in Research & Development.
RD 25 Power Index

R&D World Digital Issues

Fall 2024 issue

Browse the most current issue of R&D World and back issues in an easy to use high quality format. Clip, share and download with the leading R&D magazine today.

Research & Development World
  • Subscribe to R&D World Magazine
  • Enews Sign Up
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing
  • Global Funding Forecast

Copyright © 2025 WTWH Media LLC. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media
Privacy Policy | Advertising | About Us

Search R&D World

  • R&D World Home
  • Topics
    • Aerospace
    • Automotive
    • Biotech
    • Careers
    • Chemistry
    • Environment
    • Energy
    • Life Science
    • Material Science
    • R&D Management
    • Physics
  • Technology
    • 3D Printing
    • A.I./Robotics
    • Software
    • Battery Technology
    • Controlled Environments
      • Cleanrooms
      • Graphene
      • Lasers
      • Regulations/Standards
      • Sensors
    • Imaging
    • Nanotechnology
    • Scientific Computing
      • Big Data
      • HPC/Supercomputing
      • Informatics
      • Security
    • Semiconductors
  • R&D Market Pulse
  • R&D 100
    • Call for Nominations: The 2025 R&D 100 Awards
    • R&D 100 Awards Event
    • R&D 100 Submissions
    • Winner Archive
    • Explore the 2024 R&D 100 award winners and finalists
  • Resources
    • Research Reports
    • Digital Issues
    • R&D Index
    • Subscribe
    • Video
    • Webinars
  • Global Funding Forecast
  • Top Labs
  • Advertise
  • SUBSCRIBE