The periodicity of circadian rhythms was measured for young naive and older conditioned individual worker and drone honey bees, Apis mellifera L. (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Under conditions of constant darkness, low vibrational stimuli, and 27°C, the free running circadian oscillation of activity for workers had a periodicity of 21.8 hr; that for drones was 23.7 hr. Captive, isolated drones appeared to live longer under these conditions than they did in light.
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Hayward G. Spangler (1972) studied this question.
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