Litinsects

Litinsects #53: Waggle Dance Communication in the animal kingdom comes in many forms... even dance! And honey bees are quite the dancers. As you know, worker bees spend much of their time visiting flowers to forage (see Post #36 for a recap on honey). When a scout finds a particularly good patch of flowers (or even another resource like potential nesting site), she returns to the hive to recruit more workers to fly to the resource. In the case of a food source, she first regurgitates and distributes some of the nectar she has collected in order to grab the attention of her hive-mates. And then she tells them exactly where they can find more. Enter the WAGGLE DANCE. This fascinating form of communication tells other bees in which direction and exactly how far to fly to find a resource. The waggle refers to the motion of the performer’s abdomen, which wiggles very quickly side to side. Here’s a play by play: While waggling, the bee moves forward in a straight line, called the wagg...

Litinsects #47: Varroa Mites Month of Mites, Part 3 We are now onto some mites that are kind of a bummer: VARROA MITES. These are external parasites of honey bees and they are capable of massive damage to hives. Let’s start with the basics: © Scott Bauer Varroa destructor mites are 1-2 mm in size, usually wider than they are long. They are flattened to fit between the abdominal plates of bees, where they feed The mites puncture the body and feed on the body fat tissues of larval, pupal, and adult bees. They reduce bee life span and leave hosts weakened with wounds that may be susceptible to other infections Varroa is also a VECTOR for numerous viruses that have a negative effect on bees including deformed wing virus Although they now have an almost global distribution, these parasites are native to Asia and Western honey bees (Apis mellifera) are not actually their native hosts! Some Asian honey bees (the natural hosts) are believed to have developed some resistance to the mites but Ap...

Photo: Todd Ryan Litinsects #26: Eusociality I’m sure everyone has heard of worker bees, queen bees and drones. Bees 🐝 have a complex and interesting social structure and they are not the only ones! There are many different kinds of social systems within the animal kingdom. Even within specific taxonomic groups, individual species can display vastly different social structures and behaviors. Today I’m talking about the highest level of social organization: EUSOCIALITY Eusociality (with the Greek prefix “eu-“ meaning “true”) is defined by 3 GENERAL CHARACTERISTIC: 1) OVERLAPPING GENERATIONS living within the same colony 2) COOPERATIVE BROOD CARE, meaning that individuals collectively care for offspring other than their own 3) REPRODUCTIVE DIVISION OF LABOR into specialized groups Continuing with the bee example, we know these 3 points pertain... different CASTES have specialized jobs pertaining to reproduction (queens produce offspring, drones are there ...