Data from: Long-lived winter honey bees show unexpectedly high levels of flight activity compared to short-lived summer bees

This dataset results from the automated RFID monitoring of honey bees marked throughout the year, from 2021-05-21, to 2022-04-27. In total, the number of flights, total flight duration, and lifespan of 523 honey bees that emerged during the year, including short-lived bees of spring, summer and autumn and long-lived winter bees. The flight activity performance of short-lived bees decreased progressively from spring to autumn for both the number of flights and the total flight duration. Furthermore, only a fraction of the bees emerging before winter are long-lived winter bees, with a lifespan of 143.5 ± 23.5 days (mean ± SD). With an average of 37.5± 44.2 flights and 12.7 ± 15.5 hours of flight, long-lived winter bees were substantially more active than short-lived bees of summer and autumn, but performed similar activity than short-lived bees of spring. In addition, a small proportion of long-lived winter bees participate in the vast majority of the flight activity of the colony. These results suggest that the extended lifespan of long-lived winter bees does not affect their flight activity performance, probably supported by their physiological qualities.The data are related to the scientific paper "Minaud, E., et al. (Accepted) Long-lived winter honey bees show unexpectedly high levels of flight activity compared to short-lived summer bees. Apidologie".<br>Data are available as a csv file titled "2024.11.07_Minaud_et_al_data_RFID.csv".# METADATA<br>#'data.frame': 523 obs. of 10 variables:<br># $ UID : Factor variable ; a unique identity of each bee monitored<br># $ colony: Factor variable ; three factors are available, representing the bee colony, with “RE” for the colony in summer and “RH1” &amp; “RH2” for the two colonies in winter.<br># $ cohort: Factor variable ; 5 factors are available, “CE1”, “CE2”, “CE3”, “CE4” and “CE5” for the five cohorts in summer, and “CH” for the cohort of winter.<br># $ date_intro: Date variable ; 5 dates are available corresponding to the introduction date of each cohort.<br># $ date_dead: Date variable ; representing estimated date of death of the bee monitored.<br># $ LSP: Numeric variable ; representing the lifespan (in days) of the monitored bee.<br># $ long_profile: Factor variable ; two factors are available representing the longevity profile of the monitored bee, with “Short-lived” and “Long-lived”.<br># $ flightspan.nb: Numeric variable ; representing the number of flight of the monitored bee.<br># $ flightspan.dur: Numeric variable ; representing the total flight duration (in minutes) of the monitored bee.<br># $ act_period: Factor variable ; 4 factors are available, representing the flight activity period of each bee monitored, with “N” no flight activity, “B” flight activity only before winter (before the 2022-01-05), “A” flight activity only after winter (after the 2022-01-05), and “B&amp;A” flight activity before and after winter.<br>

本数据集源自2021年5月21日至2022年4月27日一整年对标记蜜蜂的自动化射频识别（RFID，Radio-Frequency Identification）监测。总计收录了523只全年羽化蜜蜂的飞行次数、总飞行时长与寿命数据，涵盖春夏秋季的短寿命蜂群以及越冬长寿命蜂群。

从春季到秋季，短寿命蜂群的飞行活动表现（包括飞行次数与总飞行时长）呈逐步下降趋势。此外，越冬前羽化的蜂群中仅有小部分为长寿命越冬蜂，其寿命为143.5±23.5天（平均值±标准差）。长寿命越冬蜂的平均飞行次数为37.5±44.2次，平均总飞行时长为12.7±15.5小时，其飞行活跃度显著高于夏秋季节的短寿命蜂群，但与春季的短寿命蜂群相近。此外，仅小部分长寿命越冬蜂参与了蜂群绝大多数的飞行活动。

上述结果表明，长寿命越冬蜂的寿命延长并未影响其飞行活动表现，这或许得益于其生理特质。本数据集关联已录用的学术论文：Minaud E. 等. 《长寿命越冬蜜蜂相较短寿命夏蜂展现出出乎意料的高飞行活动水平》，发表于期刊《Apidologie》。

数据集以逗号分隔值（CSV，Comma-Separated Values）文件形式提供，文件名为"2024.11.07_Minaud_et_al_data_RFID.csv"。

# 元数据
# 数据框：523条观测值，共10个变量：
# $ UID : 因子变量；代表每只监测蜜蜂的唯一标识
# $ colony: 因子变量；包含3个因子水平，分别对应蜂群：夏季蜂群为"RE"，冬季两个蜂群分别为"RH1"与"RH2"
# $ cohort: 因子变量；包含6个因子水平，夏季的5个队列分别为"CE1"、"CE2"、"CE3"、"CE4"、"CE5"，冬季队列记为"CH"
# $ date_intro: 日期变量；对应各队列的引入日期，共5个不同日期
# $ date_dead: 日期变量；代表监测蜜蜂的预估死亡日期
# $ LSP: 数值变量；代表监测蜜蜂的寿命（单位：天）
# $ long_profile: 因子变量；包含2个因子水平，代表监测蜜蜂的寿命类型："Short-lived"（短寿命）与"Long-lived"（长寿命）
# $ flightspan.nb: 数值变量；代表监测蜜蜂的飞行次数
# $ flightspan.dur: 数值变量；代表监测蜜蜂的总飞行时长（单位：分钟）
# $ act_period: 因子变量；包含4个因子水平，代表监测蜜蜂的飞行活动周期："N"表示无飞行活动，"B"表示仅越冬前（2022年1月5日前）有飞行活动，"A"表示仅越冬后（2022年1月5日后）有飞行活动，"B&A"表示越冬前后均有飞行活动。