Telegraph article on Heater Bees

[Norm]

I have long believed there are sub caste's within a colony that are better at certain roles than others. Just as in any human society for instance, there are people better at certain tasks than others. Think of soldiers defending their city/country etc. They are naturally fit well muscled fighting types whilst the myopic smaller person is possibly a clerk or librarian. The whole sanitary aspect of an organism would be better off if it was like this so I believe that nature has made it so. Most of us have witnessed worker undertaker bees hauling out the dead from the hive. This is an arduous and laborious task suited one would imagine to the bigger more muscled and stronger bee. Just one more aspect that suggests natural cell provides bees of different sizes, never mind the varroa issue.

Michael Bush certainly thinks this is the case too if you read his website. In the heater bee instance, I suspect all the workers are capable of this thermogenesis but I am sure some are much better at it than others.

 

[MuswellMetro]

See the attached extract

and down load the pdf file of the extract sample pages, it the section obout heater bees


http://www.springer.com/life+sciences/book/978-3-540-78727-3

 

[Hivemaker.]

So if the temp of the brood is going to decide the individual roles of emerging bee's within the colony for their entire life,is it safe to ever open a hive of bee's again,what does that do to this fixed set of temperatures?

 

[Brosville]

Well.......... it certainly opens up a whole new realm of possibilities as to the implications of this work as applied to beekeeping - perhaps the Warré hive methodology (two inspections a year) really is the way to go..........
Perhaps those who suggested we should do all we can to preserve "essential heat and atmosphere" weren't such fools after all.........
Perhaps the great god Langstroth got it all a bit wrong............
(For which heresy I will doubtless be burnt on a pile of Beehauses)

 

[Hivemaker.]

Heat also generated by brood,and as for empty cells,i'm with Norton on that one.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/21w3125704670152/

 

[oliver90owner]

as for empty cells

Ahhh! That must be the reason they leave cells empty along the wire lines. The heater bees can use the wires for conducting the thermal energy to reach those 70 pupae!

Now, should we fit a lot more wires?

Regards, RAB

 

[Tom Bick]

Possibly Rab but they do tend to fill them in eventually the whole thing is fascinating I am reading the book at the moment The Buzz About Bees by Jurgen Tautz and I highly recommend it, it has given me a whole new way of thinking about the colony

 

[Norton]

Ahhh! That must be the reason they leave cells empty along the wire lines. The heater bees can use the wires for conducting the thermal energy to reach those 70 pupae!

Now, should we fit a lot more wires?

Excellent , really, really, funny!
Norton.

 

[DulwichGnome]

This seems to have a bit more info,
http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Animals/Archives/2008/Busy-with-Bees.aspx
and is dated last year.

 

[Firegazer]

Just watched the Hamster seeing into the 'Invisible World'.

Fun programme, particularly the mad geezer inching along the 400kV power line after climbing out of a helicopter to get onto it

The bees bit was very unconvincing, I thought.

I can believe that the average temp of the larvae could determine the final physiology of the bee.

I can believe that each bee has a job for life, determined by its temperature and feeding during development (although that would imply some changes to other knowledge that seems to be supported by evidence).

I still can't believe, and I don't think this film showed that, the heater bees are a special caste that keep the larvae at the exact temperature for this development.

The first 'example' of a heater bee was doing a waggle dance on the comb; I'm guessing it had just been foraging and therefore had hot flight muscles.

The other bits of film showed a 'hot' bee in contrast to other, colder, bees on a colder background comb. This is good evidence that the 'heater bee' isn't warming anything at all. If it was conducting its heat into the comb and other larvae cells, you wouldn't be able to see it apart from maybe a warm blob, gradually becoming colder, further from the centre (!) It's only because it's such a DIFFERENT temperature, that it stands out in the images.

I'm guessing some bees do generate heat, when it's needed, by using their wing muscles (as they presumably do all winter). I think it's likely that the centre of the brood nest is at a higher temperature than the periphery. I suspect the bees can use the blunt instrument of heating, coupled with fined grained control of ventilation and insulation (covering up the cells or not) to create zones of different temperature.

The job for life bit sounds sensible to me (queen for life, drone for life, nurse for life, forager for life) and I'm looking forward to someone finding out either way.

FG

 

[Finman]

.

This discussion is too full of " I believe "

Comparing human and honeybee colony makes no sence.

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