ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a model of European honey bee foraging and supporting evidence. It describes the comparative foraging and honey production of Africanized and European honey bees. The chapter offers an ecologically based interpretation accounting for the differences and provides a model of Africanized honey bee foraging. Foraging by European honey bees is highly responsive to seasonally related nectar flow conditions. The foraging of honey bees also fluctuates in ways that are most appropriate to the predictable nectar flow conditions of the season. The value of comb volatiles as a regulator of foraging resides in its common influence on all the bees in a colony engaged in nectar collection and storage. The experimental pathway to understanding the comparative foraging and honey production of Africanized and European bees rested in comparing representatives of the two groups of bees across varying conditions of forage availability and foraging stimulation.
