Emerging Science Note/Bee It Hot or Cold
Air Date: Week of May 30, 2003
Living on Earth’s Maggie Villiger reports how colder temperatures during their youths can make honey bees stupid.
Transcript
 A honeybee freshly hatching from its heated cell. (Photo: © Beegroup Würzburg/Fiola Bock.) |
CURWOOD: Coming up: the more things change, the more they stay the same on Capitol Hill.
First, this Note on Emerging Science from Maggie Villiger. [MUSIC: Science Note Theme] VILLIGER: Honeybees exert a lot of energy keeping their hive at just the right temperature, between about 91 and 97 degrees Fahrenheit. They bring in water and fan it to cool things down, and they warm things up by vigorously contracting their muscles. Recently, researchers investigated what effect temperature changes might have on bees as they develop. They focused in on the three-week pupal stage, since the bee’s entire body and nervous system is rebuilt during this period before it emerges as an adult. So, scientists let groups of pupae develop in their lab at the low and high end of the normal beehive temperature range. When the adult bees emerge from their cells, they all seem to behave normally. But when the bees left the hive, deficits became apparent.
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A hot heater bee seen through a temperature sensitive videosystem (red color means hot) is sitting on top of the lids covering cells in which the pupae develop (bottom). The heat is transmitted through the lids onto the heads of the pupae. (Photo: © Beegroup Würzburg/Marco Kleinhenz/Brigitte Bujok/Jürgen Tautz.)
