Life tables for worker honeybees

Abstract

Summary Life tables for worker honeybees covering all life span, and those for adults, were prepared for three seasonal cohorts, June bees, July bees and wintering bees . Survivorship curves for June and July bees show a convex type being exceptional for insects, with relatively high mortality at egg and feeding larval stages and at later adult stage after most bees became potential foragers. Adult longevity greatly lengthens in Winteriing bees and survivorship curve drops approximately with the same rate. A remarkable similarity of survivorship curves for men and honeybees was demonstrated, apparently due to highly developed social care in both. Some comments were given on mortality factors. The importance of life tables for population researches was shown by applying our result to the population growth curve made by Bodenheimer , based upon the data by Nolan . At the asymptote of the uncorrected curve, the ratio of total population estimated by uncorrected curve to that by corrected curve reaches about 3∶2.