Connected on 2011-11-10 09:30:00
from Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States
- 8:27 am
- Bugscope Teamsample is coating...
- 8:44 am
- Bugscope TeamGood morning, Mrs. Happnie!
- Bugscope Teamwelcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Teamwe will start making presets for you in a few minutes, and we should be ready for your class at 9:30.
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the sample now in the CCD view of the chamber
- Bugscope Teamthe chamber is pumping down right now, and when it reaches vacuum we will be able to turn on the electron beam
- TeacherHi Scott- It's Maddy Shapiro Lori and her class will be here ar 10:30- Ijust setting up the lab
- Bugscope TeamOh Cool -- Hi Maddy!
- 8:49 am
- Teacher10:30 EST I mean
- Bugscope TeamThis is Scott, logged in as Amy, who will be in soon
- Bugscope Teamhaha we are not who we appear to me
- Bugscope Teambe
- Teachermy bees did well this season over 100 lbs of honey!
- Bugscope Teamsweet
- 8:55 am
- 9:01 am
- 9:08 am
- 9:13 am
- TeacherCan I practice with the controls before the kids come in?
Bugscope Teamyes just a couple more presets and you can have control
- TeacherI see that the part of the insect is identified in the upper left this year and a more info button
Bugscope Teamyes trying to be a bit more helpful
- 9:20 am
- Bugscope TeamAlright you may drive now if you wish. Please let us know if you have any questions or problems.
- TeacherOkay I remember how
- 9:25 am
- Bugscope Teamit's a little different
- Bugscope Teamthis is the only small bee we had
- Bugscope Teamthere's a huge one in the lab; we wouldn't have had space for much else
- TeacherDo we have the stinger as a preset
- Bugscope Teamyes we do
- Bugscope Teamit's called 'Sting'
- TeacherI see now- thanks- Everythhing looks great the kids should be here soon
- Bugscope Teamit has some juju on it -- some fluid
- Bugscope Teamsorry it is hard to make out the details, like the barbs. it's at an odd angle
- 9:33 am
- Bugscope TeamHello from the Bugscope team!
- Bugscope TeamPlease let us know when you have questions about what you're seeing or how this works.
- Bugscope Teamthis is the bee's left antenna, a few segments of it
- Bugscope Teambeneath the antenna, to the right, is the bee's left compound eye
- Studentwhy is the antena in segment
Bugscope TeamThe segments make the antenna flexible so it can move around
- Bugscope Teamif you look up close at the antenna you will see lots of tiny hairs called 'setae,' and you will also see oval flat areas that are called placoid sensillae. They are chemosensors.
- Studentcold a bee have 3 antenna's
Bugscope Teamit is possible, but very unusual
- Studentwhat happenens when a bee looses its antenni?
Bugscope Teamit would not be happy but could likely use the other one
- 9:38 am
- StudentWhat is the antena used for
Bugscope Teamthe antennae help it smell the fragrance of flowers and pheromones in the air
- Studentcan one antenna be stronger then another.
Bugscope Teamlikely, but it would be hard to tell. it would be a cool experiment to devise
- StudentWhy are there dots on the antenna?
Bugscope Teamsome of the dots we see -- the white ones -- are actually tiny hairs called setae. some of the round, more gray-appearing dots are the placoid sensillae, which help the bee smell the air
- Bugscope TeamI am sitting at the microscope itself, at the scanning electron microscope, or SEM. So I can control it as well. I just brought the magnification up on one segment of the antenna
- Bugscope Teamnow we can see the tiny bristle-like setae, and we can also see the sensillae.
- Bugscope Teamsome sensilla are motion-sensitive; the bee can tell when its antenna is flexing a particular way
- Bugscope Teamnow we can see the compound eye
- 9:43 am
- Bugscope Teamall of the tiny facets of the compound eye that we see now are called ommatidia
- Bugscope Teamsome wasps, which are related to bees, can have as many as 17,000 ommatidia in one eye
- Studentwhat is a compound eye?
Bugscope Teama compound eye is an eye that has lots of tiny lenses -- the ommatidia -- like this one
- Studentare those skales on the eys
Bugscope TeamThose hexagonal bumps that you see, those are the ommatidia.
- Studentcan the see color/
Bugscope Teamyes they can, some better than others
- Studentwhat is the eye made out of
Bugscope Teamthe eye is made of a protein called chitin
- StudentHow many eyes does a compound eye have?
Bugscope TeamThis one could have around 2,000 ommatidia (smaller lenses) on the eye
- Studenthow big is the eye
Bugscope Teamif your teacher takes the magnification down, you can use the scale bar to approximate the size of the eye
- 9:49 am
- Studentcan a bees eyes be different colors?
Bugscope TeamYes, they can. But most times they appear to be black.
- Bugscope Teaminsects are invertebrates, which means that they do not have a backbone. really, they do not have bones at all; they have what is called an exoskeleton instead. the exoskeleton is a hard shell made of chitin, which is kind of like what your fingernails are made of.
- Bugscope Teamsometimes their eyes are covered with long hairs
- StudentWhat shape are the ommatilda in the compound eye?
Bugscope TeamAs we zoom in on them, you can see that they have 6 sides
Bugscope TeamSo they are hexagonal
- Studentdoes the bee have good vision
Bugscope Teamthey have pretty good vision, and the compound eyes allow them to see more at one time than we do
- Bugscope Teammany flying insects, including bees, also have three simple eyes, called ocelli, on the top of their heads
- Bugscope Teamit is a a little difficult to see the barbs on the sting, or stinger, on this bee
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that there is some dried fluid, maybe bee venom, on the surface
- 9:55 am
- StudentHow does the queeen bees stinger work
Bugscope Teamall stingers are modified ovipositors, and that of the queen bee is certainly more as an ovipositor than as an actual stinger. ovipositors deliver eggs (which are sometimes also called 'ova').
- Studentdose the stinger put venom
Bugscope Teamthe stinger of a worker bee has venom in it
- Studenthow many bees does it take to fill a jar of honey?
Bugscope TeamIf you think about how much honey a bee can carry (about .02 grams) and figure out how many grams of honey would be in a jar, it would take about 23,000 bees to fill up a whole jar!
- Studenthow old ca a drone live?
Bugscope Teamthey are said to live about 40 to 50 days
- Studentcan a bee sting a bee?
Bugscope TeamYes, and they won't lose their stinger like they do when they sting mammals
- Studentwhat is the stinger made of ?
Bugscope Teamthe stinger is also made of chitin, but it is a little bit harder. we have found that some insect features that are hardened like that also have minerals such as zinc in them that help harden them or make them tougher
- Studenthow many eggs can a queen bee make in a day
Bugscope Teamone reference says that a healthy queen bee can lay up to 2000 eggs per day
- 10:00 am
- Studenthow does a bee die when it stings something?
Bugscope Teamthe bee dies when it stings a mammal, like us, with thick skin; it does not die when it stings another insect, usually
- Studentwhere is the venom stored?
Bugscope TeamThe worker bee has a bulb by the stinger that holds the venom in it.
- Studentcan a person die from the venom
Bugscope Teamyes if the person is very allergic and does not get treatment
- Studentwhat does a dead bee's stinger feel like to the touch?
Bugscope Teamit would feel like a tiny needle
- Studentcan a dead bees stinger sting?
Bugscope TeamNo, it won't sting because the bulb holding the venom will not work anymore. However, if you step on it, or something like that, it will still be sharp and may hurt.
- Studentis the stinger hollow
Bugscope Teamit has two halves and is hollow inside, or has a hollow space inside
- Studentwhy would a bee sting something if it will die afterwards
Bugscope Teamwhat happens is it gets its stinger stuck in your skin and cannot get it out. it tears away from the bee's body, and the bee then has a large hole in it, so it bleeds to death, in a way
- Studenthow many parts of a legs are there?
Bugscope TeamIt has 7 or 8 parts -- I will have to look that up
- Studentwhat happens if the queen dies?
Bugscope TeamThe worker bees put royal jelly on the most recent larva to allow it grow larger than a normal worker cell so they can have a new queen bee
- 10:06 am
- Studentdoes a bee have only one stinger
Bugscope Teamyes it does!
- Studenthow did a bee gets its stinger
Bugscope Teamit forms when the bee grows into an adult
- Studentcan we se the pollen basket
Bugscope Teamthis is it, right here, but there is no pollen on this one
- Studentwhy is the queens stinger different
Bugscope TeamBees develop from cells. A queen bee's cell is grown vertically so that it grow larger than the rest of the worker bees. So since it is grown differently, it will have different attributes compared to the worker bees
- Studentcan all types of bees pallenate?
Bugscope TeamI believe that they can -- even by accident. Lots of insects can pollenate
- Studenthow much can a pollen basket weigh
Bugscope Teamnot sure, certainly more than a few milligrams
- Studenthow much hair does a bee have on its whole body?
Bugscope TeamA lot! but it can depend on what type of bee it is, or the size of the bee
- Studenthow small is the smallest bee?
Bugscope Teamthe smallest bee species is stingless, and it is said to be about 2 mm long
- Studenthow much pollen can be held
Bugscope Teamthe bee can pack the pollen baskets on both of its legs, and it also carries loose pollen that sticks to it. so it depends on the size of the bee
- 10:11 am
- Studenthow much pollen can a bee produce
Bugscope TeamBees collect pollen to take back to their hive. They can hold about .04 grams of pollen depending on their size
- Studentare workers and dromes stingers the same
Bugscope Teamdrones are male bees and cannot sting; I don't believe they even have stingers, since stingers are modified ovipositors and thus a female appendage
- Studenthow many bees are in a colony
- Studentcan bees sleep?
Bugscope Teamthey don't really sleep but go into a state called 'somnolence' in which they are calm and motionless
- StudentHow many species of bee are in the U.S?
- Studentdose the knee joint have any muscles
- Studentwhat is royal jelly?
Bugscope TeamThe worker bees make it glands in the hypopharynx to use to raise and provide nutrition for the developing queen larvae
- Studentcan stingers be different colors
Bugscope TeamIt could be possible. There are over 20,000 different types of bees
- Studentwhy are bees attracted to bright colors
- Studenthow manybees are there
Bugscope Teamthere are perhaps 20,000 bee species, and there are said to be 7 to 9 recognized families of bees, but not all have been discovered or named
- StudentIs this bee a worker bee?
Bugscope Teamyes it is
- Studentcan a bee get sick
Bugscope Teamthey can get sick, sometimes from pollutants and sometimes from viruses
- Studenthow big is the biggest bee?
Bugscope Team The largest bee in the world is Megachile pluto. This is a leafcutter bee and the females can grow to about 39 mm long. They can easily be mistaken for wasps or flies because they are so large.
- StudentAre some bees endangered?
Bugscope Teamcertainly throughout the world there are bee species that are endangered as their habitats are lost
- Studentis a bee at all like a person
Bugscope Teamnot really. they are much more like automatons -- they have a kind of programmed behavior
- StudentHow can you tell how old a bee is?
- 10:16 am
- Studenthow many body parts do they have
Bugscope Teaman insect has a head, a thorax, an abdomen, and six legs. of course there are antennae, the stinger, and lots of other features, so it depends on how we specify body parts
- Bugscope Teamthe bee leg has a femur, perhaps a condyle closer to the body, a tibia, and probably five tarsomeres -- the tarsal segments that include the claws
- Studenthow do bees communicate?
Bugscope Teamone way they communicate is by 'dancing' for the other bees in a way that tells the other bees where honey is an how far away it is; they can also communicate using pheromones, and that is why their antennae are important, in picking up those chemical signals
- Studenthow much pollen can a pollen basket hold?
Bugscope TeamIt would depend on the size of the bee. Some are equipped to carry as much as 40 milligrams back to the hive at a time
- Studentis there a killer bee
Bugscope Teamthe African honeybees are termed killer bees
- Studenthow much can bees collect?
Bugscope TeamIn one trip, a bee can carry about .04 grams of pollen. Of course it also depends on the size of the bee.
- StudentHow old is this bee?
Bugscope TeamIt is probably a month to 6 weeks old
- Studentcan baby bees sting?
Bugscope TeamI don't think so but I am not sure
- Studenthow big can a hive get
- Studenthow long can a bee dos a bee lives
- Studentwhat is the strongest typ of bee
Bugscope Teamthat is hard to say. do you think the largest ones are the strongest?
- Studentdo bees play with each other
Bugscope Teamnot really, not like we do\
- 10:21 am
- Studenthow many bees are in a colony?
Bugscope Team1 queen bee, 200-300 drones, and 20,000 to 50,000 bees. However, in the winter, there are no drones and therefore the amount of worker bees is more like 15,000
- Studentdo you know how long it takes for a bee to fully mature?
Bugscope Teamyou could say 21 to 24 days, for workers and drones, respectively
- Studentcan a Queenbee pollinate
Bugscope TeamThe Queen Bee's responsibility is to lay eggs, therefore she never pollinates.
- Studentthank you we learned a lot
- Studenthow much pollen dose one hive use in a day
- Studentthank you we learned a lot
- StudentTHAN YOU SO MUCH AMY AND SEM!
- StudentHow far away is the claw from the pllen basket?
Bugscope Teamthe pollen basket is on the femur, so you have the tibia and then about 5 tarsi; the claw is on the last of the tarsi
- StudentThis was so helpful!!! Thank you so much for giving us a better understanding of bees
- Studenthow much pollen does a bee collect in a day
- Studentwhat is the weakest type of bee
Bugscope TeamI am sorry -- I don't know. Maybe the smallest ones?
- Studentthank you we learned a lot
- Bugscope TeamThank You!
- StudentTHANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME!!!
- StudentHo old is the average queen bee?
Bugscope TeamI think they live 3 or 4 years, so maybe 2 years would be a good average
- 10:27 am
- Bugscope TeamThank You for connecting with us today!
- Bugscope Teamhttp://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-074
- Bugscope Teambelow is the member page for today's session
- Bugscope TeamAngie and D are you still here?
- Bugscope Teamwe are going to close down soon and check out some bacteria samples
- Bugscope Teamwe are shutting down!
- Bugscope TeamThank You!
