Connected on 2012-01-09 09:45:00 from Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States
- 8:20am
- Bugscope Team sample will be coming out of the sputter coater in a minute
- Teacher Are you expecting us at 9:45 EST?
- 8:26am
- Bugscope Team 10:45 EST, 9:45 CST
- Bugscope Team if we need to start earlier, like 9:45 EST, we will try to hurry
- Bugscope Team Ms Friedman we did not have any honeybees, but we have a large bumblebee, a yellowjacket, a wasp, and some ants, among other things. All of those are hymenoptera, related to bees.
- Bugscope Team The extra critters are a stinkbug and a couple of houseflies; also we have a portion of a butterfly wing
- Teacher It's Maddy Shapiro We can start at 10 you can or at 10:45 if you can't
- Teacher Bumbe bee okay we are interested in pollinators
- Teacher my honey bees were flying on Saturday due to the warmth
- Bugscope Team Hi Maddy!
- Bugscope Team 10 your time?
- 8:31am
- Teacher yes
- Bugscope Team I think we can do that.
- Bugscope Team we
- Bugscope Team are just waiting for the vacuum to get better
- Teacher Thanks- the class got the time mixed up
- Bugscope Team then we'll make some adjustments and start storing presets
- Teacher We have the lab all mornig so if you need the extra time that's okay- I just need to let the class know when to come down
- Bugscope Team The vacuum is almost there. We will shoot for 10 your time, may be 5 or so minutes over.
- Bugscope Team when you put samples in the 'scope, even if you've checked them out with a dissecting 'scope, you don't know what they'll look like at high mag
- Teacher Great- I'm all logged in so I'm going to head off to do some tech work in the buildng- see you at 10
Bugscope Team hey Cool. Thank You.
- 8:42am
- 8:48am
- 8:54am
- 8:59am
- Teacher We are here!
- Teacher Let us know when you are ready
- 9:04am
- Bugscope Team this is the compound eye of the very large bumblebee -- too big to let us see its whole head
- Bugscope Team we are ready...
- Bugscope Team please let us know when you have questions about anything
- Bugscope Team you can see that the compound eye has thousands of facets, which are individual lenses called ommatidia
- Bugscope Team some wasps can have as many as 17,000 ommatidia per compound eye
- Student why are there hexogons on the eye
Bugscope Team the ommatidia are shaped like hexagons because that shape is the best shape for close-packing something that is essentially circular and also 3 dimensiona;\
- Bugscope Team flying insects usually have big eyes that encompass most of their heads. They rely on their eyes a lot. While insects like ants usually have tiny eyes or even sometimes no eyes at all because they live in the ground
- Bugscope Team 3 dimensional...
- Bugscope Team you can see part of the shaft of the antenna to the left; it is covered with tiny sensory hairs called setae, and also circular plate-like components called placoid sensillae
- 9:09am
- Student What is the blob on the eye?
Bugscope Team that's just a piece of dust or dirt
- Bugscope Team insects are often dirty, and when get them they are usually dead, so the dirt could have come along after they died
- Bugscope Team the antennae have thousands of chemoreceptors on them that allow the bee to sense chemical scents in the air, so, for example, it can find flowers by scent as well as seeing them
- Bugscope Team you can see there are hairs (setae) all over the bee
- Bugscope Team some bees have setae on their eyes as well, but this one does not
- Student why do they have hair on the antennae?
Bugscope Team most of the hairs, or setae, you see are for sense of touch. But there are special sensory areas, called placoid sensillae, that are there to get the pheromone information that other ants or insects put out
- Bugscope Team insects have an exoskeleton, meaning that they do not have bones on the inside but instead a kind of hardened shell, like armor, on the outside
- 9:15am
- Student is that similar to mammals with whiskers?
Bugscope Team exactly! very much like cat and rat whiskers
- Bugscope Team you can see that there is dried fluid on this stinger, but it is very sharp and has barbs that can cut into your skin
- Bugscope Team bees, wasps, and ants are fairly closely related, and they actually look similar
- Student what does the stinger inject
- Student what is the stinger made of?
Bugscope Team same as the rest of the exoskeleton- chitin. Which happens to be the same stuff our fingernails are made of.
- Bugscope Team because insects (and also crustaceans like shrimp) have an exoskeleton, made of chitin, the setae we see -- the 'hairs' -- stick through to help the insects sense their environment
- Student is the stinger the bees only wepon
Bugscope Team it's their main weapon. Their bright yellow color is also a warning for others to stay away.
- Student how is the stinger sharp?
Bugscope Team you can see that its tip is at the bottom of the image, so it is not too sharp, and being slightly blunt it is less delicate and also hurts more
- Student dose it have poison on it?
Bugscope Team yes it has a venom (poison) in it
- 9:20am
- Student why does a a bee bite hurt
Bugscope Team bee bites shouldn't hurt any more than if another insect were to bite you. Their main way of causing pain is from their sting
- Bugscope Team some insects, like certain flies, are bee mimics, which makes other animals avoid them
- Student do bees only use the stinger for their defense?
Bugscope Team in bees, the stinger is for defense, except that of the queen, which is also used, or almost exclusively used, as an ovipositor -- for laying eggs
- Bugscope Team in parasitic, or parasitoid, wasps, the stinger is used to both sting and to inject eggs into the host insect (an ovipositor is used to lay eggs)
- Student how many times can a bee use it's stinger
Bugscope Team honey bees can only use their stinger once on a mammal (and usually only if provoked). Their stingers stay in the mammal skins. They can sting other insects multiple times though. Bumblebees and wasps can both sting multiple times
- Student why does a bee's sting hurt
Bugscope Team the venom is mostly what makes it hurt, and it is a warning not to mess with other bees
- Bugscope Team future queen larvae are fed more royal jelly than normal worker bees.
- 9:25am
- Student how does a queen bee lay eggs
Bugscope Team she has been fertilized by drone bees -- males from another colony -- and she lays eggs through her ovipositor, which is the same thing as a stinger
- Bugscope Team drones are said to come from unfertilized eggs, and they are male; only the female bees come from fertilized eggs
- Student are all the bees in the hive related to the queen bee
Bugscope Team yes
- Student how dose the queen bee create another queen?
Bugscope Team the worker bees feed the larvae royal jelly. Otherwise it just becomes another worker bee
- Student where do bees come from
Bugscope Team they have been around for millions of years, and have lived on all continents, but honeybees are thought to have originated in SE Asia
- Student how many years have bees been around
Bugscope Team they have been in existence for millions of years
- Student why can a yellow jacket sting hard?
Bugscope Team yellowjackets are wasps, and they can sting repeatedly; I am not sure why it seems harder that the sting of other wasps
- Student is there such thing as a king bee
Bugscope Team only in blues songs ;)
- 9:31am
- Student what are a bees enemies
Bugscope Team sometimes they are other bees, like other species of bees; sometimes they are ants, which are the enemies of almost everything; sometimes they are bears or other mammals that want their honey
- Bugscope Team the bullet ant is described as having a high sting pain like "fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel."
- Bugscope Team on the screen now we see pollen, although it looks much like mold spores
- Student do bugs go to the bathroom
Bugscope Team yes they do\
- Student are bees color blind?
Bugscope Team kind of. They see green and blue but can't see red. Instead of seeing red they can also see in ultraviolet
- Student What is the hive made out of?
Bugscope Team it is made of wax, from the bees, but also plant resins, and sometimes mud and other things
- Student why are there spikes on the pollen
Bugscope Team those help the pollen balls stick to other things so they can get carried to other areas
- Student where do the worker bees live if all the cells are filled with eggs?
Bugscope Team they live just outside of the cells so they can care for them
- Student how big are the drones eyes?
Bugscope Team I think they are about twice the size of those of the workers
- Student what happens when all the cells are used up?
Bugscope Team bees can make more cells, and they can also swarm, move away, and start another hive somewhere else
- 9:37am
- Student does all grains of pollen have spikes
Bugscope Team no. pollen has a variety of shapes and sizes. stargazer lily pollen, which we have in the 'scope sometimes, has a cool raised pattern on it but is not at all spikey
- Student what colors do bees come in?
Bugscope Team I think you could say black, yellow, brown, and reddish colors
- Student What is the differents between a bee, a wasp, a hornet, and a yellow jacket
- Student how big can a hive get to
- Student is pollen in every plant in the world
Bugscope Team not all plants have pollen
- Student is pollen always round?
Bugscope Team sometimes it is oval
- Student what are bees enemies
Bugscope Team there are bee-eater birds, mockingbirds, kingbirds, beewolves (which are a type of wasp) and dragonflies.
- Student how many bees live in a hive
- Student How do bees mate?
Bugscope Team normally I understand that the female bee flies out of her normal range, when she is young, to mate in the air with drones from other hives, from other colonies; I believe when she comes back to the nest she is done mating forever. but there are many bee species, and certainly they do not all work the same way
- Student what colors do bees come in
- Student How many bees live in a hive?
Bugscope Team At the height of summer there will be one queen, 200 to 300 drones (males) and 20,000 to 50,000 worker bees.
- Student how are hives developed
Bugscope Team in the the ones that are made of beeswax, the beeswax is produced by glands in the abdomens of worker bees
- 9:43am
- Student do bees have brothers and sisters
Bugscope Team yes, mostly sisters, since all are born from the same queen. All the workers are female.
- Student can bees experience emotion
Bugscope Team I don't believe you could say they experience emotion like we do; they are more programmed by chemical scents and visual stimuli to do what they do
- Student how big is a queen itself
Bugscope Team depending the species, the queen can be a few inches long even if the worker and drone bees are comparatively small
- Student how dose the queen bee know which eggs are drone eggs
Bugscope Team those are eggs that aren't fertilized. They probably smell or look different
- Student whats does the inside of a hive look like?
- Student how do bees clean them self
Bugscope Team they have combs built into some of their legs, and they can run those combs over their setae and also over their antennae to clean them
- Student What do bees eat?
Bugscope Team they eat pollen and nectar
- Student what are we looking at
Bugscope Team this is the head of an ant, which is related to bees and to wasps
- Student how many bees does it take to pollinate a flower
- Student what do bees eat
- Bugscope Team regarding emotions, those can be said to be chemically produced; when a bee is alarmed it can produce a pheromone that makes the other bees angry as well. people respond to chemical stimuli as well, although we think we are more rational than insects
- Student how does the bee hold the pollen it collects
Bugscope Team the pollen actually clings to their hairs. Their 'knees' are usually able to 'cup
Bugscope Team cup' more
- 9:48am
- Student what inspired you about bugs?
Bugscope Team they are creatures that have to do the same things we do -- solve many of the same problems -- and it is very interesting to see how they do that
- Student do bees have tongues
Bugscope Team yes but not like ours.
- Student do bees have teeth
Bugscope Team they don't have teeth, but they have mandibles, which are hinged jaws that open out like a gate
- Student do bees live in other places besides hives?
Bugscope Team they can live in the ground, in burrows in the dirt
- Student what do bees eat ?
Bugscope Team they eat nectar, which is the sugary product of many plants' flowers, and also pollen, which is mostly fed to larvae
- Student do the bees need to be taught how to do their work
Bugscope Team they probably know what to do by what pheromones are being given off. They do what the queen needs done
- Student how do the bees find their way back to the hive
Bugscope Team they follow the scent of pheromones.
- Student what is ultraviolite?
Bugscope Team ultraviolet is a wavelength of light that people cannot see (without a 'blacklight') but many insects can see
- Student do varroa mights like bees or not
Bugscope Team they are parasites of the bees, so they must like them for that reason
- Student do bees sleep
Bugscope Team not like humans. They enter a state of inactivity, where they are start moving again right away if needed
- Student do bees play?
Bugscope Team I don't think they play like we do
- Student how many species of bees are there in the world?
Bugscope Team there are around 20,000 different species of bees
- Student Do bees focus on there sense of sight or do they focus on thier hearing more?
Bugscope Team they focus on sight and smell
- Student how long can a queen honey bee live
- 9:54am
- Student how many bees does it take to make a pound of honey?
Bugscope Team I read that it can take the pollen from 2 million flowers, so that means it takes a lot of bees but I am not sure how many
- Student how do bees clean themselves
Bugscope Team they have little combs on their legs they use to clean their antennae and eyes. There may be a separate set of worker bees that can clean others as well
- Student THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Student Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Student what is a hive made out of?
Bugscope Team the actually honeycomb part of the hive is made of wax the bees make from special glands on their abdomens
- Student Thank you for answering our questions!
- Student do varroa mights kill the bee
Bugscope Team varroa mites can kill bees by weakening them because they suck hemolymph (insect 'blood') out of their hosts. Varroa mites also spread viruses that can cause problems, for example weakening the wings so that they do not work properly.
- Student do bees get sick
Bugscope Team yes they can get diseases
- Student thank you for teaching us all the new things that you taught us we have learned alot!
- Bugscope Team thank you for all your questions!
- Student thank you for your time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Student do they have ears?
Bugscope Team They don't have ears like we think of ears but can sense vibration using some of their setae. sound is vibration, so they hear that way.
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Student thank you!!!!
- Student see you next year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Student good bye
- Student goodbye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Bugscope Team see you next year, yes!
- Bugscope Team Good Bye!
- Student bye
- Student (:(:(:
- Student thank you:)
- Bugscope Team Bye!
- Student bye
- Bugscope Team This was a lot of fun for us. See you next year!
- 10:00am
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-106
- Bugscope Team over and out!
