A capillary feeder (CAFE) assay to measure food consumption and diet choice of individual honey bees

Abstract

Methods for quantifying food consumption are a vital resource for the evaluation of nutritional decisions made by animals. The Capillary Feeder (CAFE) assay has been widely applied to study individual food consumption in the fruit fly, Drosophila. The current methodology is limited in its ability to precisely quantify the feeding behavior of larger insects such as honey bees over long durations. We present the detailed design for a modified CAFE assay suitable for the honey bee (Apis mellifera), a typical data-set that can be collected from this assay, and discuss the possible experimental uses of the modified assay.

Keywords:

• nutrition
• food choice
• behavior
• capillary feeder assay
• honey bee

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Aja Mattise-Lorenzen and Amanda Lark for assistance with data collection.