Honeybees are known for dancing to communicate where a food source is and now it seems they may be able to communicate the quality of nectar or pollen through their body temperature. Nieh and his colleagues found that honeybees who returned to their hive with higher quality pollen, pollen that contains higher levels of protein, had a higher body temperature. The forager is telling the other bees in the hive the net caloric benefit through their temperature so how warm they are tells the other bees the quality of the food. Honeybees are able to use their antennae to sense the temperature of foragers returning to the hive and Nieh tested whether they can actually sense their food through temperature. They found that honeybees are able to identify warmth with their food by training the bees to stick out their tongues for a sugary reward when a warm surface touched their antennae. Next they showed that the bees were able to learn that different temperatures correlated with different food rewards. The honeybees recognized warmer temperature differences much more than they could recognize cold temperature differences. This is likely due to the fact that the center of the flower where they find nectar is 8 degrees Celsius warmer than the outside of the flower. It seems that now not only do honeybees communicate where the food is, but they are able to tell the net caloric benefit through temperature. What do you think they will find out next about communication between honeybees?
-Tara Quist (9)
That's so interesting! Did the article say anything about how their body temperature is raised when they find high-quality food?
ReplyDelete-Posted by Sarah Benjamin
That is a great question and I was actually wondering the same thing when I read the article. Unfortunately the paper isn't published yet and I am only able to see the abstract. It just says that the honeybees are warmer when there are higher levels of protein in pollen and that they are able to discriminate between food sources based on the temperature. I will try and look at the whole paper when it is published and let you know if they explain how the body temperature is raised.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment!
-Tara Quist
Wow bees just keep getting more and more complicated! What's next? I wonder if there are other ways bees communicate (maybe about things other than food)that we don't know about yet. It would be interesting to read the whole article when it comes out.
ReplyDelete-Tricia Carlson
I too was wondering how their bod temperature becomes raised. Is it something they voluntarily control? very interesting article! Bees are more complex than I ever imagined.
ReplyDelete-Emily Crete
It is mind blowing to me how much information bees can communicate to each other about their food source. From their waggle dance and having to calculate distance from the hive and angle from the sun, now to an increased body temperature, these bees seem to be prime communicators. I agree with the big question here of how their body temperature is raised. I am curious to find out if it is involuntary or voluntary. It sounds like it would be involuntary due to the fact the the nectar is so much warmer than any other part of the plant.
ReplyDeletePosted by Tiffany Mallet