The unprecedented case of a foraging queen

Reviewed for you by Claude Pfefferlé

But where does the queen fly? The unprecedented case of a foraging queen! Another dogma is being challenged…

In the countryside of northern Sardinia, an Italian honey bee queen (Apis mellifera ligustica) was observed for the first time in spring 2021 while foraging on a borage flower (Borago officinalis), most likely during an orientation flight prior to mating.

Introduction

Reproduction is the only task normally assigned to the queen because of her specific morpho-functional characteristics, whereas foraging activities are carried out exclusively by the workers of the honey bee colony. For example, the queen’s proboscis is shorter than that of workers and is therefore less suited to exploring the interior of flowers for nectar collection. Olfactory and visual detection are also less developed in the queen than in workers, even though these stimuli are known to be crucial for detecting suitable flowers and locating the food source within the flower.

In the countryside of northern Sardinia, an Italian honey bee queen (Apis mellifera ligustica) was observed for the first time in spring 2021 while foraging on a borage flower (Borago officinalis), most likely during an orientation flight prior to mating.

The flared and shallow corolla, together with the high nectar secretion of the borage flower, may have facilitated the foraging activity of this queen. This new royal behaviour is based on the morphological characteristics of the specimen examined and on photographs taken at the time. The observed foraging activity opens up new, as yet unexplored perspectives on the behaviour of honey bee queens outside the colony (or hive), which could occasionally include tasks usually attributed exclusively to workers.

Article summary

During a survey of apidological fauna in the countryside of northern Sardinia in April 2021, an Italian honey bee queen (Apis mellifera ligustica) was detected while foraging on a borage flower (Borago officinalis L.) in Uri, Province of Sassari, Italy, most likely during an orientation flight prior to mating. Morphological details, detectable from photographs taken with the naked eye and from stereomicroscopic observations, confirmed that the queen was sucking nectar. The pronounced development of the abdomen, the absence of pollen-collecting structures on the hind legs (pollen baskets), and other features such as the typical distally bilobed shape of the mandibles with long hairs on their external surface demonstrated the structural differences between this observed royal specimen and individuals of other castes.

Figure 2: Morphological details of the mouthparts of the observed honey bee queen: (a) elongated proboscis; (b) bilobed shape of the mandible with a tooth-shaped external lobe; (c) long hairs on the external surface of the mandibles (Uri, Sardinia, Italy; photo: Pietro Niolu).

The length of the proboscis, although shorter than that of workers, may have been compensated by the flared shape of the borage corolla and the high attractiveness of its nectar. This new observation demonstrates that a queen can feed herself under natural conditions, probably to obtain the energy required for the nuptial flight. Although disturbing factors that might explain this surprising behaviour observed for the first time cannot be excluded, food foraging by a (virgin) queen opens new perspectives for research and discussion in the context of the literature on queen behaviour before fertilisation, both inside and outside the hive. Many of these questions remain unresolved.

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