Fever in honeybee colonies

Honeybees, Apis spp., maintain elevated temperatures inside their nests to accelerate brood development and to facilitate defense against predators. W e present an additional defensive function of elevating nest temperature: h oneybees generate a brood-comb fever in response to colonial infection by t he heat-sensitive pathogen Ascosphaera apis, This response occurs before la rvae are killed, suggesting that either honeybee workers detect the infecti on before symptoms are visible, or that larvae communicate the ingestion of the pathogen. This response is a striking example of convergent evolution between this "superorganism" and other fever-producing animals.