Social Insect Research Group, Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 0002, South Africa.
J Comp Physiol B. 2011 Apr;181(3):353-9. doi: 10.1007/s00360-010-0530-6. Epub 2010 Nov 16.
Colonies of Apis florea, which only abscond a short distance, usually return to salvage old nest wax; but, those colonies, and all other honeybee species which go considerably further, do not. Wax salvage would clearly be counter-productive unless the energy input/energy yield threshold was a profitable one. There are two possible trade-offs in this scenario, the trade-off between the energy expended to recover the wax (recovering hypothesis) as against that of replacing the wax by new secretion (replacing hypothesis). In order to compare the two hypotheses, the fuel costs involved in salvaging wax on one return trip, the average flower handling time, flight time and relative values for substituting the salvaged wax with nectar were calculated. Moreover, the energy value of the wax was determined. Net energy gains for salvaged wax were calculated. The energy value of the salvaged wax was 42.7 J/mg, thus too high to be the limiting factor since salvaging costs are only 642.76 mJ/mg (recovering hypothesis). The recovery costs (642.76 mJ/mg) only fall below the replacement costs for absconding distance below 115 m thus supporting the replacing hypothesis. This energetic trade-off between replacing and recycling plus the small absconding range of A. florea might explain why A. florea is probably the only honeybee species known to salvage wax and it parsimoniously explains the underlying reasons why A. florea only salvages wax from the old nest if the new nesting site is less than 100-200 m away-energetically, it pays off to recycle.
仅短距离逃离的东方蜜蜂（Apis florea）群体通常会返回以抢救旧巢蜡；但是，那些群体以及所有其他去程更远的蜜蜂物种则不会。除非能量投入/能量产出的阈值是有利的，否则抢救蜡显然是适得其反的。在这种情况下，有两种可能的权衡取舍，即在回收蜡的过程中消耗的能量（回收假设）与通过新分泌来替代蜡的能量之间的权衡取舍（替代假设）。为了比较这两种假设，我们计算了在一次返回行程中抢救蜡所涉及的燃料成本、平均花朵处理时间、飞行时间以及用花蜜替代抢救蜡的相对价值。此外，还确定了蜡的能量值。计算了抢救蜡的净能量收益。抢救蜡的能量值为 42.7 J/mg，因此不可能成为限制因素，因为抢救成本仅为 642.76 mJ/mg（回收假设）。回收成本（642.76 mJ/mg）仅低于逃逸距离低于 115 m 的替代成本，从而支持替代假设。这种替代和回收之间的能量权衡以及东方蜜蜂（Apis florea）较小的逃逸范围可能解释了为什么东方蜜蜂（Apis florea）可能是唯一已知抢救蜡的蜜蜂物种，它合理地解释了为什么如果新筑巢点距离不到 100-200 m，东方蜜蜂（Apis florea）只会从旧巢中抢救蜡的原因——从能量角度来看，回收是有利可图的。
