Experimental Giant honeybee nest.

<p>Chitwan (Nepal) in January 2009. (A) View of the whole nest; the green line gives the quiescent zone, where the bees are positioned with their heads upwards and the abdomens downwards; outside of this zone are the rim areas (left side and bottom), the attachment zone (top), and the mouth zone (right) marked with the yellow line; the green and yellow rectangles show nest areas which are displayed at a bigger scale in (B, quiescent area) and (C, mouth zone); white circles show the <i>near neighbourhood</i> (r<40 mm) and the <i>far neighbourhood</i> (r<100 mm) of the selected <i>focus bee</i>, which is positioned in the centre of the circles. The outer black circle within the white size marker (bottom left of the nest) is 6 cm in diameter. (B) Area of the quiescent zone; the white dot shows the position of the thorax of the selected <i>focus bee</i>, defining the centre of the white open circle (r = 40 mm) of the <i>near neighbourhood</i> and of the white square which indicates the detection area (60 x 60 px) of the selected bee to assess the _relXYmov values (see <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0036736#s2" target="_blank">Methods</a>). Note the differences in orientation of the surface bees between quiescent zone (B) and mouth zone (C).