Today’s letter R is for rectum. Yes, indeed, bees have a rectum and they certainly poop. In the honey bee, the rectum is unusual in that it can expand and contract as needed. In winter, when the workers may be trapped in the hive for long periods, the rectum accumulates waste matter and water while the bee stays warm in the hive. When a warm day (above 45 F or 7 C) arrives, she will take a quick trip outside the hive to relieve herself.
Continue readingQ is for Queen
Today’s letter Q is for Queen, of course. For a long time folks thought a beehive must be ruled by a male bee. In fact, in ancient Egypt the bee was a symbol for the King of Lower Egypt. It wasn’t until the 1600’s that the biologist Jan Swammerdam provided evidence that the Queen was, in fact, female and the mother of all worker bees.
Continue readingP is for Pollination
Today’s letter P is for Pollination. Not a bee part, I know, but it’s March 1 in Virginia and the flowers are getting ready to burst. We have crocus, daffodils, and creeping speedwell blooming so far, and more on the way. It looks like we may have some warm weather on Sunday, in which case I may check to see if the bees are bringing in nectar from the neighborhood.
Continue readingO is for Ocelli
Today’s letter O is for Ocelli. Honey bees, and bees in general, have three ocelli in the middle of their head to detect light and movement. These are also referred to as simple eyes because they lack the complex structure of compound or vertebrate eyes. There is no retina and they often have a single lens. So they are not really “simply” though perhaps more simple than other types of eyes.
Continue readingN is for Nosonov
Today’s letter N is for Nosonov. The Nosonov pheromone, as you might guess, is produced by the Nosonov gland. This important honey bee pheromone is emitted by worker bees to orient other workers to the colony. It used during swarming to direct workers to the new home, and whenever workers find themselves confused or disoriented as to the location of the hive. If you see a bee at the entrance with her butt up in the air, they are likely emitting this pheromone.
Continue readingM is for Mandibles
Happy New Year! Sorry for disappearing on you these past two weeks, but ready to go again. Today’s letter M is for Mandibles. Honey bees use their mandibles to emerge from their capped comb, build comb, and pretty much everything else they do during their short lives.
Continue readingL is for Larva
Happy New Year! Today’s letter L is for Larva. Becoming a larva is the second of four stages in honey bee development: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. The first three stages occur in the comb, of course, with adult bees maintaining the hive (mostly the female workers!). A honey bee larva molts 5 times, meaning there are 5 instar stages while a larva. You can find a detailed discussion on honey bee development from Jamie Ellis at the University of Florida.
Continue readingK is for Killer Bees
Today’s letter K is for Killer Bees. This is a term most beekeepers do not like or appreciate. Bees in general are not killers, and in fact most individual stings to non-beekeepers are from wasps, not bees. Since honey bees die after they sting, they tend not to do so away from their home hive.
In any case, the so-called killer bees are not African bees either. What the press calls killer bees are actually Africanized bees, a cross between western (European) honey bees and the East Africa lowland honey bee, the Apis mellifera scutellata. Western honey bees did not do well in Brazil, so the government funded a project to see if a cross-breed could fare a bit better.
Continue readingJ is for Johnston’s Organ
Today’s letter J is for Johnston’s Organ, the primary audio sensor in honey bees. Who is this guy Johnston and why does he have an organ? Well, I will tell you.
Christopher Johnston reported his discovery in 1855 in the paper Auditory Apparatus of the Culex Mosquito. Johnston was a physician, and had a son named Christopher Johnston as well. Why the son gets a Wikipedia article and the father does not, I have no idea.
Continue readingI is for iberiensis
This week’s letter I is for iberiensis. The subspecies Apis mellifera iberiensis, also referred to as the Spanish honey bee, is native to the Iberian peninsula forming parts of Spain, Portugal, and Gibraltar. A subspecies forms when a specific species adapts to an area and takes on distinctive traits that distinguish it from other subspecies. While different species are unable to reproduce, such as a dog and a cat, two subspecies of the same species can still reproduce. A subspecies is still a formal taxonomic designation, not to be confused a less formal designation like a breed or race.
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Bees with eeb 