Materials and Methods
Study Site and Preparation of Subjects. On July 7. 2007, we suspended a twoframe
observation hive of ≈4,200 European honey bees (Apis mellifera ligustica;
queen breeder; C.F. Koehnen and Sons) from the ceiling of a wooden
hut (41) at Cranberry Lake Biological Station in Adirondack State Park, NY
(44°09”N, 74°48”W) and allowed the bees to forage freely for 2 wk before
beginning the experiment. After this 2-wk period, we trained a group of 50
bees to visit a feeder with sucrose solution located 1 km away from the hive.
We collected the bees in perforated Ziplock bags at the feeder, cooled them
individually in a refrigerator, and then marked each bee with a unique
combination of colors (using Sharpie oil-based pens), repeating marks on the
dorsal and ventral sides of the abdomen (metasoma) to facilitate identification
of a bee when in a cell (Fig. 1C) or when dorsally obscured (e.g., while
clinging to the glass pane of the hive). We used shellac to adhere a magnetic