PSYCHE 
Vol. 84 September-December, 1977 No. 3-4 
DISPERSAL BEHAVIOR OF HONEY BEE SWARMS* 
By Thomas D. Seeley and Roger A. Morse 
Museum of Comparative Zoology 
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 
and Department of Entomology 
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853 
Introduction 
Food shortages were probably a major ecological force upon 
the European races of honey bees ( Apis mellifera) in their natural 
habitat of temperate deciduous forest. And many features of honey 
bee biology are reasonably interpreted as techniques of competition 
for food. For example, the demographic properties of descendant 
honey bee colonies in North America, such as low reproductive 
rate and infrequent but expensive offspring, probably reflect selec- 
tion for competitive ability rather than productivity (Seeley 1978). 
Also the honey bee’s sophisticated recruitment system involving 
dance language and olfactory recruitment (von Frisch 1967, Gould 
1975) seems ideal for a “scramble” type competitive device involv- 
ing rapid discovery and exploitation of food sources. Furthermore 
bees from different colonies will fight at feeding dishes when the 
food is in short supply (Kalmus 1941) and will reduce each others’ 
foraging range (Levin 1961, Levin and Glowska-Konopacka 1963, 
Gary et al. 1972, 1973, 1975). Thus honey bee colonies can appar- 
ently also compete for food sources using techniques of “contest” 
competition. 
* Manuscript received by the editor March 15, 1978. 
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