FORAGING ECOLOGY OF THE ASIAN HIVE BEE, APIS-CERANA INDICA, WITHIN ARTIFICIAL FLOWER PATCHES

The effects of sugar type (sucrose, glucose, fructose, and mixed monos accharide), reward relative energy content, and floral colour (blue vs . white, or blue vs. yellow) on foraging behaviour of Asian hive bees (Apis cerana indica) visiting artificial flower patches were studied. In colour dimorphic flower patches, bees visited both flower colours e xtensively when caloric values of rewards were equivalent; some indivi duals randomly foraged with respect to colour while many bees showed v arious degrees of preference. When 'nectar' caloric rewards differed b etween flower morphs, bees switched to the flower colour with the grea ter reward irrespective of flower patch colour dimorphism. Energy maxi mization (calories/time) was a robust predictor of A. cerana behaviour with respect to the sugar types. The foraging behaviour of A. cerana differed from that reported for A. mellifera. Although both species fo raged in accordance with predictions of an energy maximization model o n blue-white dimorphic flower patches, individual constancy was not ob served for A. cerana on blue-yellow dimorphic flower patches as report ed for A. mellifera. Models based upon Apis social structure, caste sy stem, morphology, and domestication were unable to account for this in terspecific difference. However, species-related forager size and colo ny size differences were correlated with the observed results. These c orrelations suggest that work partitioning which minimizes forager int erference may be more important to A. mellifera than to A. cerana, and that the species may base foraging actions on different initial perce ptions of 'same' and 'different' when viewing a floral dimorphism.