Using system equalization principle to study the effects of multiple factors to the development of bee colony

Abstract

In recent years, frequent outbreaks of bee colony collapse have seriously threatened food production and ecological balance. Many scholars have studied different factors and formed a consensus that multiple factors jointly cause the colony collapse. However, it is still a challenge to understand the effects of multiple factors on bee colony development due to the complex microcosmic mechanism of each factor. Based on the principle of system equilibrium, this paper models the macroscopic dynamics of bee colony with three core states: the stocks of food, the population of adult bees and the population of larval bees, and the internal and external factors have been abstracted as the model parameters. The mathematical criteria for the benign development of bee colonies are presented from the idea of system stability, and the effects of multiple factors are studied by critical parameter perturbation and Monte Carlo simulation. The results show that the population of adults is most likely to be influenced by multiple factors, that is to say, the observations related to adults, such as the total number of adults and the number/frequency of adults entering and leaving the nest, can more quickly reflect the health status of bee colony, which provides a theoretical basis for experimental studies. Meanwhile, this study reveals the effects of multiple factors on the development of bee colonies from the level of system equilibrium, which is of great significance for understanding the collapse of bee colonies in recent years. Further, according to monitoring the three core states, the trend changes of them could be used to diagnose the healthy problems of actual bee colonies.