Connected on 2009-11-05 11:30:00 from , MA, US
- 11:16am
- Bugscope Team done with presets, we are ready!
- Bugscope Team hello ms. shapiro!
- Teacher Hi- just setting up the computers- the kids are still at lunch
- Bugscope Team if you have any questions or need help, let us know
- Bugscope Team welcome to bugscope :)
- 11:22am
- Teacher The presets look awesome
- Bugscope Team cate is a preset master
- Teacher any tracheal mites in that spiracle?
Bugscope Team I didn't see any. No mites on this sample that I could see at all sadly
- Teacher Maybe that's a good thing!
- Bugscope Team :)
- Teacher i'm not sure i underatand the focus control
Bugscope Team well, it's tricky, but it does work, you may need to reverse direction if a few clicks make it less focused
- 11:27am
- Bugscope Team now those are some really long eye "lashes"...
- Bugscope Team if something is out of focus and you want us to focus for you, we can do that for ya
- Bugscope Team the compound eye is in the middle and to the left (it's really big) and the simple eye is the little round bump to to the right
- Teacher okay great
- Bugscope Team ms. shapiro, right now your login has control. if you want mrs. hanley login to have control, or any of the other computers, just let us know
- 11:32am
- Student hi the class has arrived
- Bugscope Team hello everyone!
- Bugscope Team welcome to bugscope!
- Bugscope Team those hairs are called setae (see-tee) and they are all overs every insect, it's like their skin, that's how the feel their environment
- Guest wow thats interesting
- Student what are all those dot's on it
Bugscope Team those are the individual facets of the compound eye, called ommatidia
- 11:38am
- Student how many lenses are there
Bugscope Team it varies, but flying insects have lots, thousands of facets per eye.
- Bugscope Team now you can see another kind of eye as well; one of the ocelli, or simple eyes
- Bugscope Team ants have very few lenses on their eyes because they don't need them very much spending most of their time underground and relying on their antennae. Flying insects usually have huge compound eyes with many many lenses
- Student where is it
Bugscope Team the ocellus is to the right edge of the head. It looks like a small bump
- Bugscope Team if we could see the head from the back, from the top, we would find that there are three ocelli.
- Student is this it
- Bugscope Team it is in the middle left of the screen on the back of the head
- Bugscope Team it is in about the middle-left of the screen now
- Student why do they need three eyes
Bugscope Team actually they have five eyes: two compound eyes with multiple lenses, and three ocelli. The compound eyes help them see pretty much the way we do but better in some ways. They can see ultraviolet wavelengths of light, which we cannot, and they can register motion more quickly than we can. Which is why you cannot grab them easily. The ocelli let the insect know where it is with respect to the sun; they are helpful in keeping its orientation, not getting lost.
- 11:47am
- Bugscope Team the ocelli look very similar to spider eyes. some spiders see well, but many of them rely more on vibration to sense things in their immediate environment.
- Bugscope Team pretty cool
- Bugscope Team you can see that this stinger cuts into your skin with a side by side sliding action, and you can also see that the edges of the stinger are serrated like a steak knife
- Student is there any other weapon besides the stinger
Bugscope Team Not that I can think of. The bee could bite you, perhaps.
- Bugscope Team honey bees have barbs on their stingers helping the stingr wedge into you to leave it behind
- Student what does stinger inject?
Bugscope Team it does inject some venom that, if you are allergic to bees, could be fatal, otherwise it just hurts
- Bugscope Team Serrations help cut, but Cate pointed out that what we see here are barbs that help the stinger stay in.
- Student how can you tell a female bee from a male bee
Bugscope Team male bees have much larger eyes and their size in general is bigger than a female
- Bugscope Team also males can't sting you because they have no stinger
- 11:53am
- Student what happens if you dont take the stinger out
Bugscope Team if you don't take the stinger out, all of the venom will pump into your skin, and the sting could hurt worse or last longer. Eventually, if you left it in, the stinger would fall out as your skin rejected it.
- Student do all bees die when they sting
Bugscope Team no only honey bees do. Bumble bees could sting you multiple times (but they aren't very agressive so they won't usually sting at all)
- Student is the stinger soft
Bugscope Team the stinger is hard; it is made of chitin, kind of like your fingernails
- Student what is the stinger nmade of ?
- Student what kind of venom is it
Bugscope Team the venom is called apitoxin, which kind of makes sense because bees are called Apis, and hives are sometimes called .apiaries
- Student is that the tong
Bugscope Team yep that forked part in the middle is its tongue
- 11:59am
- Bugscope Team there are lots of chemicals in bee toxin, or venom; one of them is histamine, which results in the itching swelling response.
- Student why do they have fork tounges
Bugscope Team that is the hard outside shell, and the tongue is inside, more flexible like ours
- Student it looks like a snakes tongue
- Bugscope Team apitoxin is comprised of a neurotoxin, an analgesic, anticoagulant, histamine, and dopamine
- Bugscope Team people are allergic to the histamine. about 1% of the population is allergic to bee stings
- Bugscope Team so where the fork is, the tip of the tongue comes out.
- Bugscope Team that part of the mouthparts is folded back a little now; it can be moved forward
- Bugscope Team here we see the antennae, pretty nice
- Student it looks like a worm
Bugscope Team yes it does! it has segments and is flexible
- Student Why does the anntenna have
- Student what do bees eat
Bugscope Team mostly honey and nectar, which is a sugary fluid produced by flowers
- 12:05pm
- Student how much larger is a queen bee than a worker bee?
Bugscope Team I think I remember that they can be twice the size, but I am sure it varies with species
- Student do they have bees that guard the hive
Bugscope Team yes worker bees (the females) guard the hive
- Student if they do have guards, how do they know who to let in
Bugscope Team I am not sure. It may be that they communicate using their antennae, as ants do, and some of those communications are chemical.
- Student what's the difference between a bee aand a wasp
Bugscope Team The main differences are bees are more stout, while wasps have a "skinny waist". Wasps are more aggressive and therefore, more likely to sting you. Bees are more interested in flowers, while wasps can be more interested in your garbage
- Student It looks like a lobster claw
Bugscope Team ooh yeah
- Bugscope Team Worker bees clean the hive, care for young bees, make honeycomb for storing honey, guard the hive, and forage for nectar and pollen.
- 12:10pm
- Bugscope Team the antennae have receptors for chemicals, both those that touch the surface of the antenna and those that are carried as odors in the air
- Bugscope Team wasps can sting multiple times, so their stingers are not barbed to stay in your skin, and they don't lose the little pumping station that bees have that continues to pump venom after it's left the bee.
- Bugscope Team spiracle! this is like a tiny nose that lets air into the tracheal system inside of the body
- Bugscope Team insects can close their spiracles to hold their breath, if they want
- 12:16pm
- Student is the spiraclelike ablow hole on a whale ?
Bugscope Team hey, that's an interesting thought, and i think a good analogy. the difference is whales have lungs, whereas insects don't have lungs
- Student how do the spiricals work
Bugscope Team they are the openings through which air is delivered to the internal organs of the body. they are connected to a system of tubes called tracheae.
- Student are all bees in the hiverealated to the clean
Bugscope Team the queen is usually the mother of all the bees
- Student thes hairs look fethery
Bugscope Team they are called plumose setae. They are probably really good at catching pollen grains
- Student what are the bees enimys
Bugscope Team some birds, bats, some mites, bears...
- Bugscope Team some other rodents as well
- Bugscope Team this is cool
- Bugscope Team bees and wasps each have four wings -- two forewings and two hindwings.
- Student what is it
Bugscope Team these are hooks that hook the fore- and hind-wings together to make it so that when the bees fly, it's like having one pair of wings
- 12:22pm
- Bugscope Team the hooks are called hamuli
- Bugscope Team it is more efficient for some insects to fly with two wings compared to four
- Student what is this
- Bugscope Team ah this is cool, those little balls are called brochosomes, and they are sitting inside the holes of a wing scale
- Student what are those balls
Bugscope Team those are called brochosomes, they come from a leafhopper
- Student what is the purpose of the balls
Bugscope Team they are thought to help make the leafhopper eggs less likely to break, they provide a lubrication of some sorts, i think
- Bugscope Team flies have only two wings to start with, and that is why flies are called Diptera. Di- means two, and ptera- means wing. Like the flying dinosaur pteranodon. Which would then mean winged tooth.
- Bugscope Team brochosomes (those little balls) were discovered in 1952, when someone looked under an electron microscope at leafhoppers. brochosomes are very very small
- Student do bees have brochosomes
Bugscope Team nope, only the leafhopper produces brochosomes
- Bugscope Team yes as Alex says we are looking at something that is in the nano realm. Brochosomes are often 200 to 400 nm in diameter.
- 12:27pm
- Bugscope Team the pollen grain is the one with the pointy parts
- Bugscope Team see the micron bar in the lower left of the image?
- Bugscope Team a bee might "collect" brochosomes if it were to fly around a leafhopper though, we often do see brochosomes on other insects that hang out with leafhoppers
- Bugscope Team if it says 6 microns, that is three bacteria end-to-end long
- Bugscope Team if there were bacteria in these samples we would be able to see them
- Student its time to go
- Student This is as a cool session
- Bugscope Team Oh. Are you coming back?
- Student bye
- Bugscope Team Thank You for working with us!
- Student clap clap clap clap
Bugscope Team you are totally welcome
- Student thank you for letting us see the bee
- Teacher yes the next class will be here shortly
- Student clap
- Teacher clap
- Bugscope Team Cool.
- 12:33pm
- Bugscope Team Hey it's a bee head!
- Student hi we are Mrs.geiger class
- Bugscope Team hello, welcome to bugscope!
- 12:39pm
- Student why is the bees eye harry
- Bugscope Team those hairs help the bee to fly, by providing the bee with wind speed info and direction
- Bugscope Team those hairs are called setae (see-tee), and they are all over the insect, not just on the eye
- Student how many lenses on a eye?
Bugscope Team this bee compound eye has thousands of lens's, as do most flying insects. the lens's are called ommatidia.
- Bugscope Team there may be three to five thousand or more individual ommatidia in one compound eye
- Student Is the eye hair used to catch pollen?
Bugscope Team interesting idea! but i don't think that is so. we think the eye setae are there to help the bee fly, by sensing wind speed and direction
- Bugscope Team if you had compound eyes like this you would be able to see ultraviolet wavelengths of light, and you would also be able to send motion and react more quickly than most people. but it would be very difficult to buy glasses.
- Student What is a simple eye
Bugscope Team a simple eye is also called an ocellus, and many flying insects have them on the back of their heads, in threes. three ocelli. they help the insect maintain its orientation with respect to the sun, so it does not get lost easily.
- 12:44pm
- Bugscope Team although, if a bee could capture nectar with it's eye setae, and then use its comb to collect that nectar, that would be pretty cool!
- Bugscope Team so a bee has five eyes: two compound eyes with many many ommatidia, and three simple eyes, like the little dome we see here
- Student is this the simple eye
- Bugscope Team yes it is!
- Bugscope Team it looks a lot like a spider'
- Bugscope Team s eye
- Student It looks like a giant pimple!
Bugscope Team ooh
- Bugscope Team a zit
- Bugscope Team or eeuwww
- Student Does the bees hair have ticks or flees in it?
Bugscope Team ticks and fleas are rather large compared to the size of the bee, but bees can have mites that live on them, and in the hair, or setae, on their bodies
- Student are there hairs on the singer
Bugscope Team well, i don't think there are, they are surrounding the stinger
- Student what happens after the bee stings
Bugscope Team the bee dies because it has lost an essential part of its body; the stinger is attached to the venom glands, which go with it and leave a big hole in the bee
- Student stinger
- Student why does a bee sting ???
- 12:50pm
- Student what is the stinger made out of
- Student is the stinger used for anything except stinging
Bugscope Team in a worker bee the stinger is only used for stinging
- Bugscope Team the stinger is made of chitin, like the exoskeleton of the bee. it is kind of like your fingernails
- Student how long is the stinger
Bugscope Team here the stinger is only a tenth of a millimeter or so, but we cannot see all of it
- Student WHat is the difference between a bee and a wasp?
Bugscope Team they both have four wings, but bees are generally fatter -- they don't have that skinny wasp waist. and wasps can sting repeatedly. wasps also do not produce honey.
- Bugscope Team in some insects -- some wasps in particular -- the stinger is also used to deliver eggs into the host, maybe a caterpillar. so the stinger is used as an ovipositor.
- Student is the stinger the bees only weapon?
Bugscope Team pretty much. it could bite you.
- Student what color is the stinger
Bugscope Team I think it is black or brown
- Student does the bee intentionlly sting people
Bugscope Team well, yes, i think so, but probably wouldn't unless it was provoked. bees are probably thinking more about collecting nectar and protecting the hive, more than anything else
- Student which hurts more a wasps sting or a bee sting
Bugscope Team I think that depends on the bee or wasp and whether you are allergic. wasps can sting repeatedly.
- 12:55pm
- Student does the bee ever run out of poison?
Bugscope Team it does because -- if it is a honeybee -- it stings once and dies and that is it
- Teacher Are those teeth
Bugscope Team the jaws are crossed at the top of the head as we see it now. the part coming down is the outside of the proboscis, and the tongue is inside of that
- Guest we are just joining you -- could you tell us what this is a picture of?
Bugscope Team this is the underside of the head of a bee
- Student or a toung
- Bugscope Team i think wasps are generally more painful though, assuming one isn't allergic to bees, right? i learned as a kid, stay away from wasps, big time.
- Student is there hair on the teeth
Bugscope Team they aren't really teeth - insects do not have teeth but they do have hardened chitin in some places where a mammal might have teeth. and there are probably a few setae on the proboscis but we do not see them yet
- Guest what is the object that looks like a tongue?
Bugscope Team that was the proboscis and the tongue was inside
- Bugscope Team tiger, this isn't really a "picture", it's a live video still from an electron microscope. ms. shapiro is controlling that scope over the internet. the video coming from the scope is live!
- Student what is at the top of the bee
- Teacher What are we looking at
Bugscope Team these are the antennae
- Bugscope Team the antennae of a bee
- 1:00pm
- Student what are the lines
Bugscope Team the lines on the antennae? well, those are breaks in the exoskeleton. since the exoskeleton is hard, those breaks in it allow the antennae to have some kind of flexibility so they won't break when the bee tries to sense things
- Bugscope Team the antennae have lots of setae and sensilla on them that collect information from the environment
- Student the antennae looks like a worm!!!
Bugscope Team yes it does!
- Student does it have a sence of smell?
Bugscope Team yes, and some of the sensilla and some of the setae collect chemical odors, which is what smelling is
- Student what does it eat
Bugscope Team bees eat mostly nectar and honey. nectar is the sweet liquid that flowers produce to attract insects like bees
- Student does it have all 5 sences?????
Bugscope Team yes, i think it does. however, it does not smell with a nose. it uses those hairs (setae) to smell. the setae that can smell things are called chemosensory setae.
- Student how much is the bees life span?
Bugscope Team worker bees, 1 to 4 months, drones, 40 to 50 days, queens, usually 2 to 5 years
- Bugscope Team touch, smell/taste, hearing, hot/cold, seeing
- Student how do the antenna feel
Bugscope Team the antennae would need to have setae (hairs) on it in order to feel things in the environment
- Student it looks like a lobster claw
- 1:06pm
- Student how big is the claw???????
Bugscope Team look at the micron bar on the lower left. 100 microns is a tenth of a millimeter, so we can see that this is not very long.
- Student do the claws hurt?
- Student what is the claw made of???????
- Student why does the bee have claws
- Student how much bigger is a queen bee compar to a regular bee?
Bugscope Team I think they are often twice to three times the size, but it depends on the species. they do not get super huge because they need to be able to fly sometimes
- Bugscope Team maybe two tenths of a millimeter. it is made of chitin, and it has claws to help it grasp things, sort of like the way we use our hands. but bees do not type, obviously
- Student does the bee have long arms?
Bugscope Team they are pretty much proportionate to its size, not extra long
- Student dose it have hair on its claw
Bugscope Team it looks like there might be a seta or two on the base of the claw, but in general no, the claw is just exoskeleton
- Student why is one long and one short?
- Student what color is the claw??????
Bugscope Team it is brown or black
- Student does the size of the stingers differ?
Bugscope Team drones are males and do not have stingers. bees of different sizes may have stingers of different lengths
- Bugscope Team we don't see color because we are using electrons rather than light to collect our images
- Student does the queen bee have biger claws?
Bugscope Team I think it does, a bit.
- 1:11pm
- Student what is the differnce between a bee and a killer bee?
Bugscope Team killer bees is what African honeybees are/were called. now they are called Africanized honeybees because they interbred with local bees. they are much more aggressive, and they started to show up in countries closer to the equator and then worked their way up into the US. people thought they would be stopped by the cold weather and they may be true to some extent
- Student where do you find killer bees?
Bugscope Team more commonly in countries south of us, like Costa Rica
- Student how do bees breath?
Bugscope Team see this hole there, that's how the bee breaths, air goes into that hole (called a spiracle) and provides air nutrients to the bee body
- Student is the bees skin rough?
- Student how do bees make a hives?
Bugscope Team When they move to make a new hive, they use honey left in their systems to make wax. They chew up this wax and shape it into a new comb with hexagonal cells.
- Student how many bees does it take to pollenet a flower?
Bugscope Team i'm not positive, but i think one bee can pollinate a flower
- Student how many spiracle are there?
Bugscope Team there can be a few spiracles, probably more, they are found on the abdomen usually, and sometimes the legs
- 1:16pm
- Student does the bee control its breathing?
Bugscope Team well, not really. they don't have lungs so air is not forced in/out. more so the air just goes into the spiracle and is then circulated to the body
- Student wher are the spiracles?
Bugscope Team the spiracles are on the thorax and the abdomen, two to a segment, and on the sides
- Student is each the spiracle large?
Bugscope Team spiracles are pretty small. If they were very big, they would be breathing in things that could get stuck more easily. If we had our mouths hanging open all day, im sure we would get stuff stuck down our throats more often
- Bugscope Team these are hamuli, which are wing hooks.
- Student do bees just live in hives?
Bugscope Team they live in natural hives, in holes in the ground sometimes that are also natural hives, in cavities in trees, in logs, and in artificial hives
- Student how do these work
Bugscope Team the hamuli work like clips that hook over the leading edge of the hind wing so that the fore and hindwing are connected in flight
- Student can bees be different colors?
Bugscope Team oh yeah, there are brown bees, yellow bees, greenish bees, black bees...
- Student are bees prey?
Bugscope Team totally. some birds LOVE to eat bees, they chow down on them big time
- Student what are bees enemies?
Bugscope Team bears, some rodents, some bats, some birds, ants
- 1:22pm
- Student what are those
Bugscope Team some of what we see are mold spores, and the pointy one is a pollen grain
- Bugscope Team there is a wasp called a beewolf, which primarily diets on bees, it hunts them and kills them and eats them. yummy!
- Student can bees be allergic to pollen?
- Student what do bees like?
Bugscope Team they like nectar and honey, mostly
- Bugscope Team oh there is another point one
- Student how small are pollen grains?
Bugscope Team check out the scale bar in the lower left of the image, that's 27 um, and um is a micro, one millionth of a meter
- Bugscope Team nectar is the sweet liquid produced by some flowers to attract insects such as bees
- Student is there anythig in the environment that makes bees sick?
Bugscope Team pollution and pesticides are the main things that make them sick. There is also a virus that is killing off some of them
- Bugscope Team micron, sorry
- Student where is the pollen?
Bugscope Team middle left
- Student how do honey bees make honey
Bugscope Team bees make honey through a complicated process in which the nectar they have gathered is stored in one of the two stomachs they have, this one called a honey stomach (this is from the web). Worker bees at the hive suck the nectar out of the honey stomachs of the bees that bring it in, and they chew and process it. it gets spit out onto the walls of the hive, after having been processed, and it loses water, becoming honey
- Bugscope Team and behind the mold spore on the right
- Bugscope Team the pollen has the spikier spikes, right?
Bugscope Team right-o!
- Student is pollen just yellow
Bugscope Team I don't think all pollen is yellow, but it often is yellow. bees are said not to be able to see red, by the way
- Bugscope Team the spikier balls are the pollen and the ones that have little spikes are the mold
- Student is pollen sharp?
- 1:28pm
- Student why does the pollen have spikes
Bugscope Team they are like that so they can get stuck in their hair easily
- Student what does the inside of hive look like?
- Student can pollen ever age for too long
- Bugscope Team bees are attracted to blue colors
- Bugscope Team gaps i should say, not holes
- Student thank you!!!!!!!!
- Student goodbye
- Student you guys are so smart!!!!!
- Bugscope Team thank you for all your great questions and doing bugscope with us
- 1:33pm
- Bugscope Team scott says thank you, he had to logoff quick
- Bugscope Team you all did a great job!
- Student thank you again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Student we learned alot
- Student bye
- Bugscope Team ms. shapiro, make sure to check out your member page, all the chat and images are saved there: http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2009-084
- Teacher Thanks for all your hard work and accommodating all of our classes. We look forward to working with your again. Can we ever voice conference to hear your answers?
Bugscope Team well, we don't have voice, no. think about it. 10-20 kids all asking questions at the same time...
- Teacher I will check a out the page and make a web site with images and chat excerpts
Bugscope Team cool, here's your member page again: http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2009-084
- Teacher Maybe we'll see you in the spring! bye
- Bugscope Team you did great ms. shapiro, thank you!
- Bugscope Team ok, nice session everyone, over and out
