ABOVE: A guard bee (upper right) waits at the entrance to a hive.
YEHUDA BEN-SHAHAR
As summer fades to fall, flowers wilt and forager honeybees scouring for nectar may find their sweet snack to be scarce. Typically, foragers continue to search around for some last drops of nectar before winter, but if a ravenous colony is desperate enough, it may resolve to a more dire tactic—to storm a foreign beehive and rob it of its honey.
For the targeted hive, the attack can spell disaster—bees may be killed trying to defend the colony’s food, while the honey theft leaves the colony at risk of starvation over the winter. Colonies try to prevent these invasions by stationing guard bees outside the hive to monitor the thousands of bees entering and exiting the hive. Guard bees use the smell of other bees’ cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs), compounds that form a waxy, water-resistant layer coating ...
