Connected on 2014-06-11 10:10:00
from Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States
- 9:12 am
- Bugscope Teamsample is in 'scope and 'scope is pumping down for today's session
- 9:40 am
- Bugscope Teamwe are having problems with the 'scope...
- Bugscope Teamtrying to figure out what's going on
- 9:57 am
- 10:02 am
- TeacherHi Scot- Maddy here- Should students log in as guests?
- Bugscope Teamthey can log in as students or guests. sometimes student option isnt available
- Bugscope TeamSome can login as students and some can login as guests, if the student login won't allow more to be added.
- Bugscope TeamWe're setting up the presets now.
- TeacherOkay- student option is not available- kids aren't here yet
- Bugscope TeamWe're running a bit late due to problems with the alignments on the ESEM. Feel free to watch us hunt around. :)
- Bugscope TeamWe apparently have a bug in the code that enables the student login. If that option doesn't show up, use the guest option. We can pass control to a guest if necessary.
- 10:07 am
- Bugscope TeamAlmost ready.
- Bugscope Teamany idea what plant the bees go to?
- 10:13 am
- StudentRose
- Studentviolet
- Guestpeony
- Bugscope TeamHello!
- StudentRose of Sharon
- Studentsun flower
- Bugscope TeamWe're ready to roll. Take over.
- Bugscope TeamMrs Susi you are the Supreme Ruler
- Guestwhat is the glossa
- Bugscope Teamthe glossa is the tongue
- Bugscope Teamwe can see the tip of it now
- Bugscope TeamGlossa is the name used for what we'd call a tongue.
- Bugscope Teamit has a kind of plate-like shape
- Bugscope Teamthe glossa is protected by hardened covers that comprise the labrum -- that are called the labrum
- 10:18 am
- Bugscope Teambecause I'm sitting at the microscope, I can make some small changes in the focus and the area we're looking at more quickly
- Guestare these our bees
- Studentwhat is the labrum
Bugscope Teamit is a pair of what look like hardened triangular covers that protect the glossa
Bugscope Teamit looks like a pair of scissors, kind of
- Bugscope Teamthe labrum is folded toward us at the top of this view
- Bugscope Teamnow it is to the left, and we are looking at an antenna
- Bugscope TeamScott just tweaked the focus for you on the antenna.
- Bugscope Teamthe antenna is covered with tiny setae and also what are called placoid sensillae
- Bugscope TeamYou can probably keep magnifying this. They are very interesting.
- Studentwhat is this
Bugscope Teamthis is one of the antennae; we can see the segments
- Bugscope Teamthe antennae are covered with chemoreceptors that help the bee taste and smell the air
- Studentwhy are there segments
Bugscope Teamthe segments will allow the antenna to move around or bend
- Bugscope Teamtheir exoskeleton is like a suit of armor and needs segments to be able to move
- Studentwhy is there hair
Bugscope TeamThe setae ("see-tee") are used by the bee to sense its surroundings. They are able to "taste" the air and objects in the environment by sensing chemicals. You can think of them like tastebuds.
- 10:25 am
- Studentwhy are there craters
Bugscope Teamthe craters are another form of chemoreceptor, we think. they help collect scents from the air
Bugscope Teamthe craters are the things called placoid (which means 'like a plate') sensillae (which means they are sensory)
- Bugscope Teamthis is a foreshortened view -- we are looking down a long section of antenna
- Bugscope Teamthis is the compound eye!
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that it, too, is covered with setae
- Bugscope TeamJust a quick note about how this works. When Scott makes a change locally, to focus or to move, those images do *not* show up in your database for later review. If you want to be able to save those images for later printing, etc., you should make a small change, such as moving a small distance or zooming in or out to trigger the saving of an image to our database.
- Bugscope Teama hairy eyeball!
- Guestwhy is there hair on the eye
Bugscope TeamThey are sensory too. They are used for sensing the surroundings, primarily movement - such as wind speed, when the eyes get near things, etc. - but may also be useful for thermal regulation.
- Bugscope Teamhaving a compound eye means the bee can see around it better than if it had a single lens
- Studentcan they see colors?
- 10:30 am
- Bugscope Teamalso, if you had compound eyes, you would be able to sense motion much more quickly -- the bee's brain can sense changes in the visual field at a very high rate
- StudentWhat are the Hexagons?
Bugscope Teamthose are the individual facets of the eye, called ommatidia
Bugscope TeamThey're actually more or less spherical, but because they get packed together, they assume a hexagon shape.
Bugscope TeamEach ommatidia is a separate lense. On these bees, there are hundreds to thousands per eye.
Bugscope TeamOops. "Lens".
- Studenthow many lenses do they have
Bugscope Teamprobably 3 to 5000 per eye
Bugscope Teama dragonfly or large hornet can have 30,000 ommatidia per eye
- Guestwhat color are the bees eyes
Bugscope Teami think they are usually black. scot you saw them before they were coated, is that right?
Bugscope Teamthey are black or brown
- Bugscope Teambees have branched setae, and the bee people on campus tell us that bees are the only insects with branched setae
- Bugscope Teamwe cannot see ultraviolet without the aid of a blacklight
- Studentwhy doesn't every lens have a hair
Bugscope Teamlikely it is not necessary to have a hair, or seta, at the corner of each ommatidium
- Guestcan they see colors
Bugscope TeamYes. They can. In fact, bees can see colors people cannot see, particularly shades of violet called ultraviolet.
Bugscope TeamIn fact, many flowers that depend upon bees or moths to pollenate them have completely different patterns of color if you look at them using a camera sensitive to ultraviolet light.
Bugscope TeamSome flowers even have "landing strips" that direct the bee to the source of nectar and pollen. In the process, the bee gets pollen all over its body which it then carries to the next flower.
- Bugscope Teamthis is the edge of the known world
- 10:35 am
- Bugscope Teambusy bee
- Bugscope TeamMrs Susi do you know what kind of pollen this is?
- Studenthow many grains of pollen baskets can they hold
- Bugscope Teamthey eat nectar and pollen
- StudentWhere do bees put the pollen?
Bugscope TeamDo you mean when they get back to the hive? If so, they use it as food for the lavae.
- TeacherMy bees forage in the woods so it's hard to know
Bugscope Teamit looks like they have a favorite kind of flower, right now
- GuestHow do bees make pollen into honey?
Bugscope Teamthe nectar they eat gets stored in a special stomach compartment. They later spit up the nectar that was broken down into simple sugars into honeycombs. Some evaporation takes place and you get honey
- StudentHow old can the queen get?
Bugscope TeamI think 2 years is average; I'll check'
Bugscope Team1 to 5 years; some people say 3 to 4
- 10:41 am
- Guesthow do they make honey combs
Bugscope Teamthey use their mouthparts, and they have wax glands that extrude or exude the wax
- GuestWhats the queens job??
Bugscope Teamthe queen's job is to lay eggs, perhaps as many as 2000 per day!
- StudentHow do the bees chose a new queen?
Bugscope Teamwhen they need a new queen they give a female larva royal jelly
- Studentis there a king bee?
Bugscope Teamno. it is pretty much a matriarchal society
- Studentwhat do male bees do
Bugscope Teamthey fertilize queen bees; I believe there are usually very few of them compared to the workers and drones
Bugscope Teamdrones are males, sorry
Bugscope TeamThe queen chooses when males should be around, too. They are used only for breeding. The males (drones) live for a very short time. They eat, mate, and die. That's about it.
- Studentdo they have any predetors
Bugscope Teambears, honey badgers, ants, other bees
- StudentWhy do they die when they sting?
Bugscope Teamtheir stinger has barbs that gets stuck in mammalian skin. When they try to pull back after they have stung, it rips the stinger out and they bleed out
- Bugscope Teamalong the right side of the tip of the stinger we can see some of the barbs
- GuestWhy do bees have stingers
Bugscope TeamTo protect the hive. While the western honeybee loses its stinger after stinging and dies, when the entire hive stings someting trying to steal honey (sorry, Pooh!) it is enough to drive the animal away and save the hive, despite some worker bee's deaths.
- Studenthow do make the hive?
- Guestwhich bees have stingers
Bugscope Teamthe queen and the workers; males (drones) do not have stingers. stingers in insects are modified ovipositors, for laying eggs, so it makes sense that males would not have them
- 10:48 am
- Studentwhat is royal jelly?
Bugscope Team It is secreted from the glands in the hypopharynx of worker bees
Bugscope Teamthat is a gland in their mouth
- Guestare queen bees bigger???
Bugscope TeamYes.
Bugscope Teamyes they are much bigger; when they get back to the hive the workers cut their wings off
Bugscope Teamthat is, the queen, when she is smaller and has wings, flies out to meet males bees, and becomes fertilzed; when she flies back she becomes more sedentary, does not go out, generally
- StudentHow do they find the hive?
Bugscope Teamthey have 'dances' that they use to signal to each other where food is with respect to the hive; they also have ocelli (simple eyes) on the top of their heads that help them maintain location information with respect to the sky -- to the sun
- Studentwhy are they yellow and black?
Bugscope Teamthey warn other animals that they could be dangerous. there are bee mimics that use these colors even though they aren't dangerous, but it protects them from being eaten
- StudentDoes the bee have any other defenses other than the stinger?
Bugscope Teamthey can do things like surround an uninvited guest and kill it by making it too hot
- Guestwhats that
Bugscope Teamthese are hamuli, which are little hooks that connect the fore- and hindwings for flight
- Studenthow many wings do they have?
Bugscope Teamthey have 2 pairs of wings- so a total of 4
- Guestare really disappearing
Bugscope Teamyes it is kind of scary
- Studentwhat are the hooks for?
Bugscope Teamthey function like clips to hold the wings together in flight
Bugscope Teamso there are two wings rather than four, essentially, for flying
- 10:54 am
- Bugscope Teamone of the presets shows, in comparison to this, hamuli that are clipped on
- Bugscope Teamhere we see hamuli actually being used
- Studentare they disappearing because of CCD?
Bugscope Teamyes and some people think one of the primary causes is nicotinamide-derived pesticides/herbicides
- Guestwhy do they dance
Bugscope TeamThe dancing is a form of communication. The dance informs the other worker bees where there is a source of pollen.
- Bugscope Teamnicotine is from tobacco and is presumably what the nicotinamides are synthesized from
- Bugscope Team(I'm now SuperDaniel, just in time for the end of the session. *sigh*)
Bugscope TeamStupid keyboard.
- Teacher We have lunch now- Thank you so much for all your answers!\
Bugscope TeamThank You, Everyone!
Bugscope TeamThanks for participating! :)
- TeacherMy bees here in MA are doing very well this year and all 4 hives survived the winter
Bugscope TeamNice.
Bugscope TeamWhoops. Scott just killed your login.