Bees generally attack only to defend their colony, but will also attack if they are seriously disturbed outside the nest. Common sources of attack stimulus include alarm pheromone, vibrations, carbon dioxide, hair, and dark colors (Crane 1990). This makes sense because mammals, which are common predators of bees, are usually hairy, dark colored, and exhale carbon dioxide. Aggression may also occur during foraging if there is significant competition for food resources. Interspecific competition over limited food sources has led to the evolution of aggressive group recruitment systems in stingless bees (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Meliponini), one of the most important native Neotropical pollinators (Johnson and Hubbell 1974; Johnson and Hubbell 1987; Roubik 1989; Nagamitsu and Inoue 1997; Slaa et al. 1997; Kevan and Imperatriz-Fonseca 2002; Slaa 2003; Nieh et al. 2004). Such aggressive competition may be costly and critical to colony survival, especially during periods of relative food dearth (Roubik 1982; Roubik 1989).

Click on the links below to see some examples of group aggression in stingless bees!

Selected References

Archer, J., 1988. The behavioural biology of aggression. New York, Cambridge University Press, 257.

Bernstein, I.S., 1981. Dominance: the baby and the bathwater. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4: 419-457.

Breed, M.D., Robinson, G.E., and Page Jr., R.E., 1990. Division of labor during honey bee colony defense. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 27: 395-401.

Camperio, C.A., 1986. Intertroop agonistic behavior of a feral rhesus macaque troop ranging in town and forest areas in India. Aggressive Behavior 12: 433-439.

Cooper, M.A., Bernstein, I.S., 2002. Counter aggression and reconciliation in Assamese macaques (Macaca assamensis). American Journal of Primatology 56: 215-230.

Crane, E., 1990. Bees and beekeeping: science, practice, and world resources. Ithaca, New
York, Cornell University Press, 109-111.

Goodall, J., 1990. Through a window: thirty years with the chimpanzees of Gombe. London, Weidenfield & Nicholson, 288.

Gros-Louis, J., Perry, S., and Manson, J.H., 2003. Violent coalitionary attacks and intraspecific killing in wild white-faced capuchin monkeys (Cebus capucinus). Primates 44: 341-346.

Hölldobler, B., and Wilson, E.O., 1990. The ants. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 732.

Holway, D.A., Lach, L., Suarez, A.V., Tsutsui, N.D., and Case, T.J., 2002. The causes and consequences of ant invasions. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 33: 181-233.

Johnson, L.K., 1974. The role of agonistic behavior in the foraging strategies of Trigona bees. Berkeley, California, USA, PhD thesis, University of California Berkeley.

Johnson, L.K. and Hubbell, S.P., 1974. Aggression and competition among stingless bees: field studies. Ecology 55: 120-127.

Johnson, L.K., and Hubbell, S.P., 1987. Defense of a food supply by eusocial colonies. American Zoologist 27: 347-358.

Kevan, P.G., and Imperatriz-Fonseca, V.L., 2002. Pollinating bees: the conservation link between agriculture and nature. Proceedings of the workshop on the conservation and sustainable use of pollinators in agriculture, with emphasis on  bees, São Paulo, Brazil, Ministry of Environment, Bárbara bela, Editora Gráfica, 313.

Lepeletier, S.-F.D., 1835. Histoire naturelle d’insectes-hyménoptéres. Paris, Roret, 1-547.

Maynard-Smith, J. and Harper, D.G.C., 1988. The evolution of aggression: can selection generate variability? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences 319: 557-570.

Michener, C.D., 1974. The social behavior of the bees. Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press.

Moynihan, M., 1998. The social regulation of competition and aggression in animals. Washington, Smithsonian Institution Press, 158.

Nagamitsu, T., and Inoue, T., 1997. Aggressive foraging of social bees as a mechanism of floral resource partitioning in an Asian tropical rainforest. Oecologia 110: 432-439.

Nieh, J.C., 1999. Stingless-bee communication. American Scientist 87: 428-435.

Nieh, J.C., Contrera, F.A.L., Nogueira-Neto, P., 2003. Pulsed mass-recruitment by a stingless bee, Trigona hyalinata. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences 270: 2191-2196.

Nieh, J.C., 2004. Recruitment communication in stingless bees (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Meliponini). Apidologie 35: 159-182.

Nieh, J.C., Barreto, L.S., Contrera, F.A.L., and Imperatriz-Fonseca, V.L., 2004. Olfactory eavesdropping by a competitively foraging stingless bee, Trigona spinipes. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences 271: 1633-1640.

Nieh, J.C., Kruizinga, K., Barreto, L.S., Contrera, F.A.L., and Imperatriz-Fonseca, V.L., 2005. Effect of group size on the aggression strategy of an extirpating stingless bee, Trigona spinipes. Insectes Sociaux, in press.

Reitz, S.R. and Trumble, J.T., 2002. Competative displacement among insects and arachnids. Annual Review of Entomology 47, 435-465.

Roubik, D.W., 1982. Seasonality in colony food storage, brood production, and adult survivorship: studies of Melipona in tropical forest (Hyminoptera: Apidae). Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society 55: 789-800.

Roubik, D.W., 1989. Ecology and natural history of tropical bees.  New York, Cambridge University Press, 514.

Schwartz, H.F., 1932. Stingless bees in combat. Natural History 32: 552-553

Slaa, E.J., 2003. Foraging ecology of stingless bees: from individual behaviour to community ecology. PhD thesis, Department of Behavioural Biology. Utrecht, Utrecht University: 181.

Slaa, E.J., van Nieuwstadt, M.G.L., Pisa, L.W. and Sommeijer, M.J., 1997. Foraging strategies of stingless bees (Apidae Meliponinae): the relation between precision recruitment, competition and communication. Acta Horticulturae 437: 193-197.

Stanford, C.B., Wallis, J.B., Matama, H., and Goodall, J., 1994. Patterns of predation by chimpanzees on red colobus monkeys in Gombe National Park. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 94: 213-228.

Wilson, E.O., 1971. The insect societies. Cambridge, Mass, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 548.