Swarming in bees involves the process through which there is a formation of a honey bee colony. Formation occurs when the queen bee exits the colony in the company of a large group of bees referred to as the worker bees. When happens in the prime swarm is that just about 60% of the bees known to be among the worker bees exit where the original hive was located together with their old queen. Swarming provides a natural means by which honey bee colonies are reproduced. The term Apis Mellifera is a Latin term employed for the European honey bearing bee.
What Constitutes Animal Behavior
Niko Tinbergen developed four questions intended to address the behavior of animals. The questions were causation, development, function and evolution. The questions can be categorized into proximate level and ultimate level questions. Proximate level questions are the “how” type which are addressed by causation and development (Shettleworth, 2000) . On the other hand, the “why” questions address function and evolution. The four questions are at tines called the four why questions because they address why an animal behaves in a certain manner. The question of causation: what causes the animal to behave the way it does? The question on development: How did this behavior come about in the animal? The question on function: What function does this behavior serve in the animal’s life? The question on evolution: How did this behavior reach where it is in the course of the animal’s evolution?
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The term used to describe the behavior of animals is ethology (Bolhuis & Giraldeau) . Instinct is a very important constituent when it comes to the behavior exhibited by animals. Instincts are the innate patterns of behavior that animals or humans exhibit when responding to certain kinds of stimuli. The mechanisms that an environment imposes upon an organism are responsible in shaping how the animal responds to particular stimuli. Environmental factors result inorganic changes which we passed on to following generations. With change in the environment, there is a subsequent change on how organ systems and body structures operate. Instinct is characterized by a fixed action pattern where some sequence actions can be performed without any evidence of a variation in responding to various stimuli. Comparative psychology involves observing an organism in the laboratory while conducting experiments (Heaf, 2015) . In the study of behavior, it becomes apparent to understand that some of it is innate and the other is acquired.
Animal behavior is also constitutes by natural selection. Natural selection is all about organisms being able to adapt to their environments in a bid to survive and also produce enough offspring responsible for furthering the species (Price, 1999) . Inability of organisms to adapt to the conditions set about in an environment leads to the organism’s extinction from the phase of the earth. Variation in behavior brings about large variations when it comes to reproductive success of the organisms. That is the reason why animals have different ways of responding to important processes such as reproduction, and conducting various physiological processes.
Charles Darwin (1872) was the first to provide a theoretical. Framework in the scientific study of the behavior exhibited in animals (A.H.Wilson, 2011) . His proposition was that the instincts observed in non-human animals accompanied by emotions and intelligence was very different when compared to that of human beings in degree only but the kind is retained. The environment and hereditary characteristics are responsible for shaping every kind of behavior there is to know. Spalding (1872, 1873) came to the conclusion that there was no suppression from either in the interaction between instinct ad learning (A.H.Wilson, 2011) .
The swarming behavior is an example of a communication which occurs on a grand scale (Abou-Shaara, 2014) . The swarming of honey bee colonies is evidenced by the departure of worker groups from the hive (Uzunov, 2014) . Departure is necessitated by leaving of the hive by the old queen in which developing queen are left behind together with the worker bees. Bees have chemical communication systems which regulate how they behave in swarms. They also have neurophysiological and molecular mechanisms that are ready to respond to the chemical signals. Swarming in bees happens because of instances of food shortage (Weber, 2012) .
There are a range of behavioral variations in honey bee colonies. There variations can be linked to the difference in genetic origin and the factors of the environment. Studies indicate that genotype and location have an effect on the traits of these bees (Arca, 2014) . However, the variability resulting from a difference in location is much more significant compared to that which results from the genotype. There is also a positive correlation between defensive characteristics and the swarming behavior of bees. This confirms that genetic control occurs for the characters. Defensive behavior is lower in cases where the colonies are of local origin but has a negative correlation with the behavior associated with hygiene (Uzunov, 2014) .
Conclusion
Swarming is a bee activity involving worker bees exiting where the original hive was located together with their old queen. It is a process though which bees for a colony. The study of animal behavior in its natural environment is ethology while comparative psychology is all about making laboratory observations concerning an animal. Based on the questions raised by Niko Tinbergen, swarming is caused by the behavioral adaptation of bees, developed by genetic manipulation of the animal by the environment, it serves to develop colonies for bees and the evolution conditions were based on natural selection.
References
A.H.Wilson, D. (2011). British Animal Behaviour Studies in the Twentieth Century: Some Interdisciplinary Perspectives. The Psychology of the Human–Animal Bond , 25-44.
Abou-Shaara, H. (2014). The foraging behaviour of honey bees, Apis mellifera: A Review. Veterinarni Medicina , 1-10.
Arca, M. (2014). Defensive behaviour of Apis mellifera against Vespa velutina in France: Testing whether European honeybees can develop an effective collective defence against a new predator. Behavioral Process , 122-129.
Bolhuis, J. J., & Giraldeau, L.-A. (n.d.). The Study of Animal Behavior. Retrieved December 6, 2016, from Blackwell Publishing: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/bpl_images/content_store/sample_chapter/9780631231257/bolhuis_sample%20chapters_behaviour%20of%20animals.pdf
Heaf, D. (2015). Scientific Papers. Retrieved Decembers 6, 2016, from Fee the Bees: http://freethebees.ch/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Abstracts-of-scientific-papers-April-2015-edition.pdf
O'Heare, J. (2007). Articles on Animal Behavior. Journal of Applied Companion Animal Behavior .
Price, E. O. (1999). Behavioral Development in Animals Undergoing Domestication. Applied Animal Behavior Science , 245-271.
Shettleworth, S. J. (2000). Animal cognition and animal behaviour. Animal Behavior , 277-286.
Uzunov, A. (2014). Swarming, defensive and hygienic behaviour in honey bee colonies of different genetic origin in a pan-European experiment. Journal of Apicultural Research , 248-260.
Weber, E. (2012). Apis mellifera: The Domestication and Spread of European Honey Bees for Agriculture in North America. University of Michigan Undergraduate Research Journal , 20-23.
