•  
Support crystalwind.ca with your donation and help spread spirituality and positivity. Blessings!

This article was posted by CrystalWind.ca

A+ A A-

Celebrate Bee Day With These 4 Amazing Facts About Bees

Celebrate Bee Day With These 4 Amazing Facts About Bees

May 20th is Bee Day! So, to celebrate our fabulous pollinating friends, here are four facts that go beyond their all-important role in plant cross-fertilization.

Females are the future

Female bees have different jobs depending on the species, but in all communities, female bees play essential roles that secure the survival of the entire colony.

Social bee species, for instance, need their females to find nesting spots and establish new colonies by laying hundreds of eggs there. Solitary bee species, on the other hand, need their females to create segmented nests, lay an egg in each segment, make sure to leave a ball of pollen that will feed the larva, and once their important work is done, they die.

Female bees have a lot on their shoulders, so they need as much support as they can get, especially early in the year when foraging options are sparse. “It’s best to provide female bees with many early spring flowers—they rely on nectar from flowers to fuel their search for a nesting spot,” explains doctoral student Lila Westreich. “Planting early-flowering plants such as willow, poplar, cherry trees, and other spring blooms provide nectar for queen bees.”

Some bees are curious, others are focused

Just like us, bees have different ways of going about their business. While foraging, some bees become engrossed in things like the smell, colors, and locations of known food sources and will return to those flowers faithfully. Others are more adventurous and want to explore new food sources if they catch wind of them.

This behavior is evident in an experiment led by Marquette University biologist Chelsea Cook along with her colleagues. Cook’s team bred bee populations that were genetically programmed to be either curious or focused, and another colony that had a mix of the two types.

When the bees were left to their own devices, the focused colony concentrated on familiar sources of food, as was expected, and the curious colony went to both known and new sources. 

Interestingly, the mixed colony bees ended up concentrating on more familiar sources than new ones over time. The researchers believe this is the case because the focused bees within the colony would communicate more rapidly (they communicate where to find food through a “waggle dance”).

“Because curious bees are interested in everything, including new information about possible food locations, they are perfect listeners and are easily convinced to visit the chosen feeder of their enthusiastic nestmates,” concludes Cook.

To Commemorate Bee Day, Here Are 4 Amazing Facts About Bees.

It takes a colony

On top of communicating about food through dance, bees also discuss whether they should move to a new nest site. 

According to Providence College biologist Rachael Bonoan and Tufts University biologist Phil Starks, bees work together to defend their colonies against potential threats. Bonoan and Starks conducted an experiment that involved infecting bee colonies with fungus. The pair then monitored the bees’ reactions with thermal imaging.

Once the bees figured out that the pathogen needed cool temperatures to infect them, they responded by generating heat. “When this pathogen is detected, worker bees protect the vulnerable young by contracting their large flight muscles to generate heat. This raises the temperature in the brood comb area of the hive just enough to kill the pathogen,” they explain.

Straining for the good of the swarm

Bees are big on acting for the greater good, and computer scientist Orit Peleg from the University of Colorado Boulder worked on uncovering another way that this life philosophy manifests itself within the hive.

Peleg and her team studied swarms that European honeybees form when a colony becomes so big that it has to separate into two groups. The group that absconds from the original nest forms a swarm that can hang from objects such as tree branches, and can change its shape, with each bee grasping the limbs of those next to it.

The scientists then proceeded to shake a wooden board with a swarm of 10,000 honeybees hanging off it, to gain a deeper understanding of the creation of adaptive structures for the future development of robots that could move in similar ways.

“Using a computational model, we shoed that bonds between bees located closer to where the swarm attaches to the board stretch more than bonds between bees at the far tip of the swarm,” Peleg explains. “Bees could sense these different amounts of stretching, and use them as a directional signal to move upwards and make the swarm spread.”

This means that the bees were intuitively moving from locations where bonds stretched less to locations where they stretched more to avoid having to break apart.


The Optimist Daily

Source Here

© 2022 crystalwind.ca. All rights reserved.

Pin It

Join the Conversation Now! Comment Below! arrow down small 11

 
CrystalWind.ca is free to use because of donations from people like you. Please help support us! 
Blessings!

Follow this blog

Featured Writers

Spirit Animal Totem Of The Day!

CrystalWind.ca is free to use because of
donations from people like you.
Donate Now »

CrystalWind.ca Donation!

Unlock Your Light: Join Lightworkers Worldwide on CrystalWind.ca!

 

Follow Us!

 

Who is Online Now

We have 41186 guests and no members online

Featured This Month

Page:

The Crystal Wind Oracle Card Deck

The Crystal Wind Oracle Card Deck

The Crystal Wind Oracle™ The Crystal Wind Oracle Myth & Magic Card D... Read more

Dandelion: The Surprising Power of this Medi…

Dandelion: The Surprising Power of this Medicine Wheel Plant!

Reminds you of the abundance life holds. Gender: Masculine Planet: Jupiter E... Read more

Bloodstone

Bloodstone

The Blood Energizer Stone The combined colours of bloodstone allow it to fu... Read more

Beltane

Beltane

Beltane Ritual Celebrated May 1st Beltane is also known as May Day, Walpurg... Read more

Aries

Aries

ARIES Mar 21 - Apr 20 Spirit: Adventurous, courageous Read more

Birth Totem Falcon: Are You a Natural Leader…

Birth Totem Falcon: Are You a Natural Leader?

Birth Totem Falcon Birth dates: March 21 – April 19 Birth Totem is: Falcon... Read more

Bright Beltane Blessings!

Bright Beltane Blessings!

The wheel turns to Beltane, also known as Mayday, marking the beginning of S... Read more

Diamond

Diamond

The King of all Stones The diamond symbolizes wisdom and enlightenment, pur... Read more

Green Aventurine

Green Aventurine

The Emotional Balancer Stone Green Aventurine is perhaps the best balancing... Read more

Aries Mythology: Discover the Secrets

Aries Mythology: Discover the Secrets

The Mythology of Aries First things first, when referring to the mythology ... Read more

Eudialyte: Your Aries Power Stone Revealed!

Eudialyte: Your Aries Power Stone Revealed!

Eudialyte Birthstone: Aries Planet: Mars Element: Fire Chakra: Heart Eud... Read more

Hematite

Hematite

The Grounding Stone With its iron content, hematite has a strengthening inf... Read more

The Time of No Time: Beltane!

The Time of No Time: Beltane!

Around the medicine wheel of life we go, from season to season (solstice to ... Read more

Budding Trees Moon: Medicine Wheel Insights!

Budding Trees Moon: Medicine Wheel Insights!

Red Hawk - Fire Opal - Dandelion - Yellow March 21 – April 19 The Budding Tr... Read more

Sun in Aries: Unleash Your Power!

Sun in Aries: Unleash Your Power!

Aries March 21 through April 20 An Overview of Sun Sign Characteristics for A... Read more

© 2008-2024 CrystalWind.ca. All rights reserved. Site Creation by CrystalWind.ca.
Web Hosting by Knownhost.com

 

 

X

Right Click

No right click