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A synthetically produced Nasonov pheromone can be used to attract a honey bee swarm to an unoccupied hive or a swarm-catching box. Synthetically produced Nasonov consists of citral and geraniol in a 2:1 ratio. The Nasonov gland was first described in 1882 by the Russian zoologist Nikolai Viktorovich Nasonov.
Swarm is an open-source agent-based modeling simulation package, useful for simulating the interaction of agents (social or biological) and their emergent collective behavior. Swarm was initially developed at the Santa Fe Institute in the mid-1990s, and since 1999 has been maintained by the non-profit Swarm Development Group .
Swarming is a honey bee colony's natural means of reproduction.In the process of swarming, a single colony splits into two or more distinct colonies. [1]Swarming is mainly a spring phenomenon, usually within a two- or three-week period depending on the locale, but occasional swarms can happen throughout the producing season.
A swarm typically contains about half the workers together with the old queen, while the new queen stays back with the remaining workers in the original hive. When honey bees emerge from a hive to form a swarm, they may gather on a branch of a tree or on a bush only a few meters from the hive.
Unlike a bumble bee colony or a paper wasp colony, the life of a honey bee colony is perennial. The three types of honey bees in a hive are: queens (egg-producers), workers (non-reproducing females), and drones (males whose main duty is to find and mate with a queen). Unlike the worker bees, drones do not sting.
A drone is characterized by eyes that are twice the size of those of worker bees and queens, and a body size greater than that of worker bees, though usually smaller than the queen bee. His abdomen is stouter than the abdomen of workers or queen. Although heavy bodied, the drone must be able to fly fast enough to accompany the queen in flight.
Examples of swarm intelligence in natural systems include ant colonies, bee colonies, bird flocking, hawks hunting, animal herding, bacterial growth, fish schooling and microbial intelligence. The application of swarm principles to robots is called swarm robotics while swarm intelligence refers to the more general set of algorithms.
Demaree also described a swarm prevention method in 1884, but that was a two-hive system that is unrelated to modern "demareeing". [2] As with many swarm prevention methods, demareeing involves separating of the queen and forager bees from the nurse bees. The theory is that forager bees will think that the hive has swarmed if there is a drastic ...