The Responses of the Honey-Bee to Repellent Chemicals

Abstract

1. This paper is concerned, first, with the development of a technique for maintaining a population of honey-bees (Apis mellifera) under conditions where it does not have access to naturally secreted nectar, but is allowed free flying conditions, and secondly with the application of this technique to the study of the chemotropic responses of bees to repellent chemicals. 2. Two types of stimuli are considered: (a) The effect of the addition of the repellent to an attractant (sucrose solution). (b) The effect of the repellent in the vapour phase in the vicinity of the attractant. In (a) techniques are described for measuring the response with the standard attractant alternating in time and space. 3. Data collected on the rejection thresholds of acetic acid and phenol showed that whilst little variation in response occurred at the higher concentrations of the repellent, the offering of the standard attractant alternating in time as opposed to space greatly modified the response. Tests were carried out to determine the reproducibility of the results. 4. It would appear that for a repellent chemical to be capable of effectively reducing the number of visits to a source of food, it must be capable of irritating the common chemical senses of the bee.