Connected on 2012-11-16 08:30:00
from Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States
- 7:32 am
- Bugscope Teamsample is pumping down
- 7:45 am
- Bugscope Teamnow we are starting to make presets for today's session
- 7:50 am
- 7:55 am
- 8:01 am
- 8:07 am
- 8:15 am
- TeacherHi it's Maddy- just signing student into workstations
- Bugscope Teamsuper cool
- Bugscope Teamwe are ready to roll, just reading up on head anatomy
- 8:22 am
- Teacherjust waiting for the students
- Bugscope Teamthis is pretty neat, right here
- Bugscope Teamthe tentorial pits do not go anywhere
- Bugscope Teamthey are like sprues, in sculpture -- they're invaginations in the cuticle that go inside the head to support it
- Bugscope Teamit's as close as they get to an endoskeleton
- Bugscope Teamin ants the opening is often circular, unlike this
- 8:34 am
- Studentwhat are those grassy things
- Bugscope Teamthose are setae (hairs) on the surface of the compound eye
- StudentAre those hexagons eyes?
Bugscope Teamyes they are! they are individual facets of the compound eye, called ommatidia
- Studentwhat is that leaf?
Bugscope Teamthat is a scale from some other insect
- Studentwhats that stuff on the hexogons
Bugscope Teamsome of it is juju on the surface of the eye
- Bugscope Teamsetae are 'hairs' that stick through the cuticle and let the insect sense its environment
- StudentWhy is there hair on the eyes
Bugscope Teamthey let the bee sense wind speed and direction as it flies, and they also help with thermoregulation, helping the bee keep its temperature stable
- Studenthow many facets in a eye
Bugscope Teamprobably 5000 to 7000 per eye on these bees
- 8:39 am
- Studentwhat is juju
Bugscope Teamit is what we call dried fluids or junk on the surface of insects -- stuff we do not recognize. so it is a kind of joke
- Bugscope Teaminsects do not have bones in the inside of their bodies -- they are invertebrates, which actually means they do not have backbones. but they do not have any bones.
- Bugscope Teaminstead of bones on the inside, insects and similar arthropods like shrimp, for example, have an exskeleton -- a shell -- on the outside of the body
- Bugscope Teamthe exoskeleton is like if we were wearing armor -- we would not be able to feel things that were touching us
- Bugscope Teamthe way insects (and other arthropods) solve the problem of 'wearing armor' is to have setae that stick through the exoskeleton and attach to nerves inside
- Bugscope Teamthe setae (the hairs) can be mechanosensory, for touch and wind, like cat or rat whiskers
- Studentdo they see color?
- Studentare the hexagons soft?
Bugscope Teamsometimes they are hard and crystalline, and sometimes they are soft; I think these are hard
- StudentIs that pollen on the hairs
Bugscope Teampollen is much larger; that is just dirt and debris -- juj
- Bugscope Teamjuju
- 8:45 am
- StudentHow far can they see
Bugscope TeamI do not think they see clearly as far as we do, but I am not sure exactly how far they see
- Bugscope Teamif you had compound eyes, you would also have the advantage (although it would be hard to buy sunglasses) of having the visual field update very quickly -- you would sense motion much more quickly that we do, for example
- Studentwhat are the holes/
- Bugscope Teammany pollen grains have holes or projections that help them get carried by the wind and also to stick to things
- Bugscope Teampollen comes in many shapes and sizes
- Bugscope Teamthis pollen grain may be covered in part with bee saliva
- Studentwhat about where there isn't holes?
Bugscope TeamI think that is where the bee licked the pollen grain, possibly, to help it stick to the mass of pollen in the pollen basket. but this is a solo grain of pollen
- Studentis that the anther or just a grain
Bugscope TeamI think it just a grain.
- 8:51 am
- Studenthow large is a pollen grain?
- Bugscope Teamthe anther is part of the flower, isn't it? it's the part that sticks up and is much larger
- Studentdo bees have talons?
Bugscope Teamthey have tiny claws, which are like talons in a way
- Studenttongues?
Bugscope Teamyes they do! they are called glossa
- StudentHow big is a pollen basket?
Bugscope Teamthe one this bee is carrying is huge, like about 4 mm in diameter
- Studentwhy do they collect pollen?
Bugscope Teamone thing they do is chew it up and mix it with nectar to feed their young
- Bugscope Teamthe glossa (the tongue) is kind of brush-like, and it is used with a lapping motion, like a cat drinking milk
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the six claws (six legs, six pairs of claws)
- Bugscope Teamthere is a tendon inside the shaft of the tarsus (a segment of the forearm) called the unguitractor that opens and closes the claws
- 8:56 am
- Studentwhy do they need claws
Bugscope Teamkind of the same reason we need hands -- they help them grasp things
- Studentwhat's that in between the claws
Bugscope Teamit is a pad that helps the bee stick to vertical surfaces
- Studenthow many hairs are on a bee?
Bugscope Teamthousands of hairs -- those on the eyes are single shafts, and most of those on the body are branched. the entomologists tell us that no other insect has bramched setae
- Bugscope Teamsome of the bristles we see are to help the bee sense when it is touching something
- StudentWhat color is it?
Bugscope Teamhaha I am not sure -- I believe it is black
- Bugscope Teamwhen we use the electron microscope to image samples, we see only in black and white because we are using electrons instead of light. electrons are much smaller, and the images we see come as signal, as greyscale bright and dark
- Studentwhat is that hole
Bugscope Teamthat is the central pore of the stinger
- Studentwhere is the stinger
Bugscope Teamit is in the center, hard to see in a way, but it is the thing with the hole in it
- Studentwhat are the circles in the top left
Bugscope Teamthose are pore where setae fell out
- StudentWhat's that ball in the middle?
Bugscope TeamI think you are talking about the pore, which is round and looks kind of like a ball
- 9:01 am
- Studentwhat are those dot things
Bugscope Teamthose are the bases of setae that fell out -- where the hairs were
- Bugscope Teama stinger is a modified ovipositor
- Bugscope Teamova are eggs, so an ovipositor is an egg depositor
- Studentis there a preset of a stinger
Bugscope Teamthat was it --- that was the only one on the stub today
- Studenthow big is the stinger
Bugscope Teamwe can see that it is about 50 microns in diameter (close to the width of a human hair), and it was about 3 or 4 millimeters long
- Studentwhat is the object we have centered?
Bugscope Teamreally not sure...
- Studenthow many times can a bee sting a person
Bugscope Teamonce, usually, unless it is the queen, who can sting repeatedly because she has no barbs on her stinger
- StudentCan certain bees sting more than once?
Bugscope Teamyes they can, and if they sting other insects, all bees can sting repeatedly
- Studenthow long after stinging does the bee live
Bugscope TeamI think less than an hour
- 9:06 am
- Bugscope Teamthe bee's stinger gets caught in mammalian skin because it is so thick, and the stinger and the venom sac get pulled out; the bee has a big hole in the tip of its abdomen and bleeds to death
- Student does the venom from a bee sting bother us?
Bugscope Teamyes it does. some people can take advantage of it, however. sometimes people get stung on purpose because it seems to have a beneficial effect, for example with people who have multiple sclerosis
- Bugscope Teamif you are allergic to bee stings, or if you become allergic, or if you get too many stings at once, it can kill you
- Studentwhat color is the blood
- Studentwhat color is the venom?
Bugscope TeamI believe it is clear, or maybe slightly yellowish
- Studentcan any bees kill you by a sting
Bugscope Teamif you are allergic and do not get help, or if you get stung many times, you can die from the stings
- Bugscope TeamAfrican honeybees, and Africanized honeybees, are very aggressive and can kill people by stinging in large numbers
- 9:11 am
- StudentDoes the stinger only get stuck only on humans?
Bugscope Teamno it also gets stuck in other mammals with thick skin
- Studenthow big is the venom sack?
Bugscope TeamIt is about the size of a small droplet of water, maybe 2 or 3 mm if I remember right
- Studentwhy does the honey bee sting you
Bugscope Teammostly because it feels it is protecting the hive, or protecting itself; but some bees are super aggressive and will sting just because you are near
- Studentwhat happens when a bee stings another insect
Bugscope Teamit likely kills most other insects, or paralyzes them, but the stinger does not get stuck and pull out of the bee
- Studentwhat is hamuli
Bugscope Teamhamuli are the hooks that connect the fore- and hindwings in flight
- Student it look like a hook
Bugscope Teamyes! they are also called wing hooks
- StudentHow many hooks are there?
Bugscope Teamthe number varies and the shape varies, but it seems like about 20, in our experience
- Studentwhat part of the body is that
Bugscope Teamthat is the back edge of the forewing
- Bugscope Teambees and wasps have four wings, and when they fly they hook the fore- and the hindwings together so they have essentially two wings for flying
- Bugscope Teambees and wasps and ants are related
- StudentAre the wings stable in the wind?
- Bugscope Teamit is helpful to have folding wings when you need to crawl into small spaces
- 9:17 am
- Studenthow fast can a bee fly
Bugscope Teamusually I have read about 15 to 22 miles per hour
- Studentwhat is the wing spand
Bugscope Teamit is about a centimeter, maybe 1.5, unless the bee is much larger, there are 20,000 species of bees
- StudentDo different bees have different patterns on their wings?
- StudentHow thin is the wing?
Bugscope TeamI think just a few micrometers; yesterday I told someone about 30 micrometers, and I think I was wrong
- Studentwill a wig grow back if it breaks off
Bugscope Teamno, that is it for the bee
- Studentcan it still fly with a bent wing
Bugscope Teamit just depends on how bad it is
- Studentwhat is a wing made out of
Bugscope Teamit is made of chitin, the same thing the exoskeleton is made of
- Studentare those scars
Bugscope Teamsometimes we see scars, yes -- what we see here is mostly a few microsetae and some thin film
- Studentwhat is chitin
Bugscope Teamchitin is a protein kind of like what our fingernails are made of. also -- like a shrimp cell, which is made of chitin
- Studenthow big is one wing
Bugscope Teamit is maybe a third of a square centimeter
- 9:22 am
- Bugscope Teamthe setae that stick through the cuticle -- the chitin, or the exoskeleton -- can sense touch, and also hot/cold, and also chemical scents. but usually those ar different setae, not the same ones
- Bugscope Teamgood job driving!
- StudentDoes the bee like to fly?
Bugscope Teamit is likely they don't think about it; it is their job, and it is kind of programmed into their behavior
- Studenthow do bees go to the bathroom
Bugscope Teamlike we do, in a way, but they don't stop somewhere, and also they are more likely to conserve liquids in their bodies
- StudentHow long can a bee live?
- Studentcan a bee get stung by anotherbee
Bugscope Teamyes it can
- Studenthow many eggs can a queen bee have
- Studentcan a bee hook on to another bee
Bugscope Teamwhen they mate in the air, they can, but generally not really
- Studentwhat is the hole
Bugscope Teamthat is where the stinger sticks out
- Studenthow many bees in a hive
Bugscope Team15,000 to 20,000 in the spring, and 50,000 to 60,000 in summer, is what I have read, but I'm sure it varies.
- Studentwhat happens if the queen dies
Bugscope Teamthere are other bees (larvae) that can be induced to become queens
- StudentWhat is royal jelly?
Bugscope Teamit is a substance that the workers have in special glands, I believe, that they regurgitate
- Studentwhat happens if the queen bee dies
Bugscope Teamshe is replaced, if the hive can do it in time, with a new queen
- 9:27 am
- StudentWhat is the biggest bee ever recorded?
Bugscope TeamI am not sure; probably one of the solitary bees, as big as your thiumb or larger
- Studentis there a king bee
Bugscope Teamno there is not; the only males are the drones, and they are not treated very well. not like kings ;)
- Studenthow is the queen be chosen
Bugscope Teamthe worker bees that function as nurses, feeding the larvae, give certain larvae greater doses of royal jelly, and that turns genes on in those larvae that make them become queens, but only one will be the next queen of that hive
- Studenthow do they make the wax
Bugscope TeamI think I read that wax comes from a gland on the abdomen of worker bees; I am not sure
- Studentthank you for your time
- Studentthank you
- Studentyour the best
- StudentWhat are the layers?
Bugscope Teamthe layers are kind of like joints that ensure that the abdomen can move; kind of like joints on armor
- StudentCool images!
- StudentWe learned a lot thank you!
- Studenthave a stinging day
Bugscope Teamhaha Thank You!
- Bugscope TeamThank You, Everyone!
- TeacherThanks so much See you next year!-Maddy
Bugscope TeamSee you next year!
- Studentwe learned a lot
Bugscope Teamit was really fun for us
- 9:32 am
- StudentThanks for all the information!!!!!!!
Bugscope TeamThank You!
- Bugscope TeamGood Bye!
