ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
Rapid behavioral maturation accelerates failure of stressed honey bee colonies.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 105 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
105 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 307 citations in OpenAlex.
- Meta-analysis of honey bee neurogenomic response links Deformed wing virus type A to precocious behavioral maturation.Scientific reports · 2020Pooled it
- Regulation of reproductive and behavioral plasticity in social insects.Current opinion in insect science · 2026Review
- Altered juvenile hormone dynamics mediate earlier foraging in Nosema-infected honey bees.Biology open · 2026Article
- From individuals to networks: The role of variation in plant-pollinator communities' responses to global change.The Journal of animal ecology · 2026Review
- From Plant Metabolites to Pollinator Safety: Rethinking Selectivity of Botanical Insecticides in Bees-A Review.Biology · 2026Review
- Co-inoculation with deformed wing virus and sacbrood virus affects viral and immune dynamics and synergistically increases honey bee mortality.PLoS pathogens · 2026Article
- Susceptibility to the Neonicotinoid Pesticide Imidacloprid Is Linked to Life History Regulation in Honey Bees (Apis mellifera L.).Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Microbial Succession on Honey Bee Body Surfaces Reflects Behavioral Maturation.Microorganisms · 2026Article
- Infestation by Phorid Flies Disrupts Behavior and Immune Function in Honey Bees Monitored by Radio-frequency Identification.Neotropical entomology · 2026Article
- Effect of formic acid treatment on Apis mellifera foraging behavior using nanopore metabarcoding technologies.PloS one · 2026Article
- Gut microbiota modulates aversive learning and memory of honeybees (Apis mellifera).Nature communications · 2025Article
- Deformed wing virus affects foraging success and foraging specialization of honeybee workers.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Understanding Stress Response in Superorganisms: A Multi-Level and Cybernetic Approach.Ecology and evolution · 2025Review
- BalancingInternational journal for parasitology. Parasites and wildlife · 2025Article
- Immune priming of honey bees protects against a major microsporidian pathogen.Pest management science · 2025Article
- Honey bee queen pheromone provides an early warning system to prevent collapsing colonies.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Selection and validation of RT-qPCR reference genes for multi-tissue gene expression normalization in two honeybee subspecies across post-emergence developmental stages.BMC genomics · 2025Article
- Antioxidant Potential of Pollen Polyphenols in Mitigating Environmental Stress in Honeybees (Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- The Sublethal Effects of Neonicotinoids on Honeybees.Biology · 2025Review
- Age polyethism can emerge from social learning: A game-theoretic investigation.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
45 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Many complex factors have been linked to the recent marked increase in honey bee colony failure, including pests and pathogens, agrochemicals, and nutritional stressors. It remains unclear, however, why colonies frequently react to stressors by losing almost their entire adult bee population in a short time, resulting in a colony population collapse. Here we examine the social dynamics underlying such dramatic colony failure. Bees respond to many stressors by foraging earlier in life. We manipulated the demography of experimental colonies to induce precocious foraging in bees and used radio tag tracking to examine the consequences of precocious foraging for their performance. Precocious foragers completed far fewer foraging trips in their life, and had a higher risk of death in their first flights. We constructed a demographic model to explore how this individual reaction of bees to stress might impact colony performance. In the model, when forager death rates were chronically elevated, an increasingly younger forager force caused a positive feedback that dramatically accelerated terminal population decline in the colony. This resulted in a breakdown in division of labor and loss of the adult population, leaving only brood, food, and few adults in the hive. This study explains the social processes that drive rapid depopulation of a colony, and we explore possible strategies to prevent colony failure. Understanding the process of colony failure helps identify the most effective strategies to improve colony resilience.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.