Stories tagged bees
Earthen “Beehive Houses” made from Mud, Straw, Dirt have been keeping Syrians cool for Centuries: http://bit.ly/qHxccE
Tags : Check out the interview with Marla Spivak. She is a MacArthur Fellow and Distinguished McKnight Professor and Extension Entomologist in the Department of Entomology at the University of Minnesota. Her research and extension efforts focus on honeybee health, breeding, behavior and on the sustainable management of alternative pollinators.
Read more at http://bit.ly/mhGrYH.
Researchers at the University of South Florida recently found that the fungicide chlorothalonil, in the same family as DDT, killed almost 90% of the frogs exposed to it. They tested several species of frogs, and all had the same reaction. They are now testing the chemical's mortality rate for other organisms, including bees.
I know, I know, it's not Friday. But I didn't post the Science Friday video last week. (Or the week before, for that matter, and that one's up next.)
Science FridayCourtesy Science Friday
This week (last week?):
"Crocuses, robins, spring peepers aren't the only creatures to signal spring. We visited the "Insect Compactor" at the American Museum of Natural History in New York to learn about which bugs to look out for as the weather warms. Keep your eyes on the willow trees--that's where early bees like to hang out."
Science FridayCourtesy Science Friday Today,
"Of the orchid genus catasetum, Charles Darwin wrote: "I never was more interested in any subject in all my life than in this of Orchids." The male flowers in this genus evolved an unusual pollination program. They propel a package of pollen onto the backs of visiting bees. The bees endure the blow (which would be like a 150-pound person getting hit with a few bowling balls) in exchange for orchid aromas that the bees use to attract mates.
Delicious nectar...Courtesy flickrIt feels like summer is finally here, and with the warm weather comes swimming at the beach, picnics, and… bumblebees.
A study came out today from the University of Cambridge that shows how bees use “natural Velcro” to cling on to flowers as they drink nectar. The “Velcro” is actually made up of microscopic conical cells on flower petals that allow for an easier grip. Dr. Beverly Glover, the researcher behind this discovery states:
“For bees to maintain their balance and hold on to a flower is no easy task, especially in windy or wet conditions. Evolution has come up with the simple solution of equipping flowers with a Velcro-like surface that bees can get a grip on.”
To test her initial hypothesis, Dr. Glover and her team created artificial flowers out of epoxy resin, half with flat cells and half with conical-like cells. When the petals were horizontal there was no preference, but as soon as the angle steepened, the bees chose the conical cells more than 60% of the time. Real flowers were also tested, this time the bees preferred the spiky surface over 75% of the time. Using high-speed video photography, the team saw that when bees attempted to land on the flat-celled petals, they struggled for grip. However, in all recorded occurrences the bees were able to grip onto the conical cells, allowing them to stop beating their wings and rest while feeding.
So next time when you see a bee sucking nectar from a flower, impress your friends with your knowledge of conical shaped cells and bumblebees!
Colony collapseCourtesy Kevin Cole
SMM volunteer and bee enthusiast receives grant
Marjorie Bolz Allen was a lifelong museum volunteer at the Science Museum of Minnesota. In her memory a Marjorie Bolz Allen Grant is awarded to a SMM volunteer to develop an activity that will directly enhance our museum visitors' experience about a science, technology, engineering or mathematical (STEM) discipline. I hope the following links will help my fellow volunteer (A.Z.) in developing her activity about bees.
News about bee colony collapse disorder
- The Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research Extension Consortium (MAAREC) has links to press releases, research updates, and articles about CCD.
- The University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) also has a web page with links to related sites and articles about colony collapse disorder.
- An April 16 Ars Technica article titled "A cure for colony collapse" claims that "new research has proposed both a concrete cause for bee colony collapse disorder, as well as a cure". The abstract of the source paper titled, "Honeybee colony collapse due to Nosema ceranae in professional apiaries"
Previous Science Buzz posts about bees
Joe did a Buzz burst April 8 titled More on the vanishing bees and linked to a great article in Scientific American titled Solving the Mystery of the Vanishing Bees"
Click this link for all Science Buzz posts about bees.
HoneybeesCourtesy BugMan50
My mother-in-law has been curious about the disappearing bees that Thor wrote about a while back. So I have been paying attention to this topic when it comes up. Scientists are learning more about the cause and potential solutions - find out more in this Scientific American article on the topic.
Learn more about colony collapse disorder here.
Foraging honey bee: Getting ready for the dance.Courtesy Mark RyanOne of the strangest behaviors observed in nature is the honey bee “waggle dance”. Foraging bees use this get-down-get-funky display to communicate to their hive mates the discovery of a new food source. It usually takes place whenever the food is of a high quality or when the hive’s pantry is growing bare. The dance is performed on a special “dance floor” in the hive and is a way for the foragers to let the other bees know what’s been found and how to get there.
“The honey bee dance is this incredibly complex set of activities,” said University of Illinois entomology and neuroscience professor Gene Robinson. “It’s a very integrated communication system, very elaborate and very elegant, one of the seven wonders of the animal behavior world.”
Check it out for yourself:
Robinson and his colleagues wondered what motivated such behavior in foraging honey bees. Did they experience some sort of pleasure response, just like we humans do when we do something nice for others? To find out, the researchers decided to shake things up and see what happens when the celebration gets kicked up to another level and party drugs are thrown into the dance mix.
Robinson became interested in the waggle dance during a previous study investigating the role of octopamine in insect eating and movement behaviors. Octopamine is a biogenic amine (like histamine and serotonin) that’s found in higher levels in the brains of foraging honey bees than any other bees in the hive.
“The idea behind that study was that maybe this mechanism that structures selfish behavior – eating – was co-opted during social evolution to structure social behavior – that is, altruistic behavior,” Robinson said. “There are various lines of thought that indicate that one way of structuring society is to have altruistic behavior be pleasurable.”
Altruism is known to trigger a motivating pleasure response in the human brain, but the question remained whether the same reward mechanism existed in an insect’s brain.
So, in this new study Robinson and his research team at UI in Urbana-Champaign took things a step further. They found that when a foraging bee gets all hopped up on cocaine, it doesn’t matter how good the found food is or how much is stockpiled in the hive’s cupboards, bees just “Gotta Dance”.
Not only that, but the study’s results have also led the researchers to theorize that insects have motivating reward centers in their brains, just as humans do.
“This study provides strong support for the idea that bees have a reward system, that it’s been co-opted and it’s now involved in a social behavior, which motivates them to tell their hive mates about the food that they’ve found,” Robinson said.
Because cocaine causes honey bees to dance more – an altruistic behavior – the researchers believe their results support the idea that there is a reward system in the insect brain, something that has never before been shown.
A second set of experiments showed some interesting results. Non-foraging bees, it seems, were strict wallflowers: they never danced at all – no matter if they were on cocaine or not. And the coked-up foraging bees didn’t move about any more than non-foragers except when dancing, and when they did dance they only did so at appropriate times and only on the “dance floor”, no place else.
The honeybees, unfortunately, also seemed to suffer cocaine withdrawal symptoms, but the results of the study could lead to a better understanding of substance abuse in humans, and that’s fortunate for us.
The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
LINKS
IUUC news release
Some bees: Each and every one of them thinking about doing unspeakable things to that dog.Courtesy GreencolanderMillions of surprised honeybees are loose on a California highway, after a truck carrying crates of them flipped over in traffic this afternoon.
According to an officer on the scene, "several beekeepers driving by the accident stopped to assist in the bee wrangling."
It's nice to hear that the world is still doing great.
