All About Bees

 The advances in technology of sensor apparatus has led to a whole new discipline in the study of the natural world. It is now possible to affix tracking devices to the tiniest of insects and the humble bumble bee is the latest candidate for this treatment. 

Why bees? 

Just take a look at these informed opinions on the significance of bees. One, attributed widely to Einstein but actually by a naturalist, Maurice Maeterlinck is perhaps the most well known, "if the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no  more Man"

Another goes along the lines of "You will probably more than once have seen her fluttering about the bushes, in a deserted corner of your garden, without realising that you were carelessly watching the venerable ancestor to whom we probably owe most of our flowers and fruits (for it is actually estimated that more than a hundred thousand varieties of plants would disappear if the bees did not visit them), and possibly even our civilisation, for in these mysteries all things intertwine"

On an official basis a 1907  report from the New York State Department of Agriculture discussed experiments that indicated many crops were dependent on bees for productive pollination, e.g., apple, cherry, pear, strawberry, raspberry, red clover, white clover, melon, squash, pumpkin, and cucumber. 

In a typical experiment researchers placed netting around some branches of an apple tree to exclude bees and then determined that the number of blossoms was dramatically reduced.

A more severe and sobering prediction is that so important are insects and other land-dwelling arthropods that if all were to disappear, humanity probably could not last more than a few months. 

Most of the amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals would crash to extinction about the same time. 

Next would go the bulk of the flowering plants and with them the physical structure of most forests and other terrestrial habitats of the world. The land surface would literally rot. As dead vegetation piled up and dried out, closing the channels of the nutrient cycles, other complex forms of vegetation would die off, and with them all but a few remnants of the land vertebrates.

So the bumble bee is a vital ecological lynch pin. 

We are aware of their social existence and work ethic but little is known about how bees find and exploit over their lifetime. 

This has been difficult until the availability of miniature trackers. 

In a small sample of only 4 bees over their adult life some interesting aspects were discovered. 

On emerging from the nest the bees in the study flew around scouting their surroundings with frequent stops to feed. One of the bees kept to and concentrated on familiar sites and in one day completed 20 trips to and from the nest to a single food source. 

Another adopted more of a vagabond lifestyle just ranging far and wide sampling plants. 

Although four bees is acknowledged as being very restricted the researchers felt it to be representative of a division of labour from exploiter to explorer.

The study continues to try to get a better understanding of where and when bees move in the environment and how this benefits the distribution of plant genes.