D3521: Buzzing dynamics: The impact of group size on honeybee dynamics

How groups of animals respond to changing environments is becoming increasingly important. Sociality is a strategy used across taxa to manage daily or seasonal fluctuations. Honeybees (Apis mellifera) are essential pollinators in agricultural ecosystems and show complex social behaviors that contribute to their colony's ability to manage the internal environment. As honeybee populations face various stressors, understanding their social interactions could inform strategies for colony management and resilience in changing ecosystems. One of the ways honeybees manage the temperature in their colony is by fanning. Fanning is a thermoregulatory behavior performed by bees when they flap their wings outside to cool the hive. Honeybees must interact with one another to coordinate thermoregulation. We aimed to determine how group size changes social dynamics under increasing environmental temperatures. We analyzed different group sizes, focusing on their behaviors and interactions before fanning occurred. Here we show that as the number of bees in a group increases, the duration of their interactions decreases within certain larger group sizes, reflecting a constraint on social information processing. With an increase in the number of average interactions as well as a decrease in the duration of interactions as group size gets larger, communication strategy shifts suggesting adaptive behaviors for communication and cooperation. This research highlights the complexity of social insect behavior and its relevance to dynamic ecosystem functioning.