Connected on 2012-04-10 08:00:00 from Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States
- 7:19am
- Bugscope Team sample is in chamber and pumping down...
- Bugscope Team in a few minutes we will be able to start making presets for today's session
- 7:25am
- 7:32am
- 7:37am
- Bugscope Team good morning!
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- Teacher Good Morning! I am logged in as "Mrs B" because apparently my other login "Mrs Brady" was never logged out. Can this be reset so I can log in as "Mrs Brady"?
- Bugscope Team you can try logging out now and log back in as Mrs B. I'm not sure if I fixed that or not.
- Teacher OK
- Bugscope Team now it looks like it worked...
- 7:42am
- Bugscope Team are you back as yourself again?
- Teacher I'm back in as Mrs B. I cannot log in as Mrs Brady. Oh well, no big deal. I will have 6 computers set up for students to use for chatting.
- Bugscope Team Sorry about that. I wiped out Mrs Brady again, and it could work this time...
- Teacher Will try once more. Thanks!
- 7:47am
- Teacher Looks like it worked! Thanks!
- Bugscope Team Yay!
- Bugscope Team I hadn't erased your name in the right place the 1st time.
- Teacher Should I start to control, or do you guys need to finish something?
- Bugscope Team we have several more presets to make, if that is alright
- Bugscope Team does the session start at the top of the hour?
- Teacher Our first group of students will be arriving at 9:10.
Bugscope Team cool we will make a few more presets and then give you control so you can get some practice before the students come in
- Teacher at 9:10. And the next group comes in at 9:55, and the last group at 10:40 until about 11:20 or so. I may invite some 5th graders to come at 11:30 just for a brief look.
Bugscope Team sounds great!
- 7:53am
- Bugscope Team Mrs Brady you may drive now if you would like.
- Teacher Thanks.
- 7:58am
- Bugscope Team you can see the opening now, above
- Bugscope Team we had made a preset of the same thing on the other side of the thorax
- Teacher Can I zoom all the way out to see the whole insect?
Bugscope Team You can zoom only to about 37x. So unless the insect is small you cannot see all of it at once.
- Bugscope Team There's a tradeoff between being able to get a low mag view and getting good resolution at high mag.
- Teacher Is this a honeybee?
Bugscope Team this is the stinkbug
- Bugscope Team you can check out the presets on the lefthand screen
- Bugscope Team now you can see the bee's head, of course
- Teacher Great! I am on the bee head right now.
- Bugscope Team its eyes, antennae, and mandibles
- 8:04am
- Teacher Just zoomed in on the eye
- Bugscope Team bees and wasps have four wings, and they clip each fore- and hindwing together when they fly
- Bugscope Team you can see that the eye curves around the place where the antenna normally rests
- Bugscope Team you can zoom in further if you wish
- Bugscope Team of course
- Bugscope Team when bees/wasps enter their nests, they can unclip their wings and fold them neatly to enable them to fit into the smaller space
- Teacher WOW!
- Bugscope Team I am sitting at the SEM and can easily tweak focus, occasionally.
- Bugscope Team those are the ommatidia -- the individual facets of the compound eye
- Bugscope Team there are two compound eyes plus three ocelli -- simple eyes -- on the top of the head
- Teacher The students will be coming into the Lab in a couple of minutes.
Bugscope Team great!
- 8:09am
- Teacher Do we know whether this is queen, worker or drone?
- Bugscope Team I think it is a worker, with its small eyes.
- Bugscope Team actually I am not sure this is a honeybee
- Bugscope Team there are many kinds of bees, many species of honeybees, and also several different morphologies in one species of bee
- 8:14am
- Bugscope Team recently someone advanced a really interesting theory of why colony collapse disorder occurred
- Bugscope Team the idea is that a pesticide applied to the corn that becomes high-fructose corn syrup is responsible
- Student is the left antantennae
- Bugscope Team beekeepers feed their bees HFCS in the winter
- Student why so many hands
Bugscope Team insects have six legs
- Student is the left antennae broken
- Student how long do honeybees live
- Student what was the theory of coloniey claps
- Student are the eyes rough
Bugscope Team they may look rough but to us they would feel pretty smooth
- Student why is it so hairy
- Student why is it so hairy
Bugscope Team the hairs help the bee to feel what is going on around it. They don't have sensitive skin like us.
- Student where is this insect located
Bugscope Team it is in a scanning electron microscope here in Illinois
- Student where is the nose?
- Student Why are there dots on the eyes
Bugscope Team the dots are the individual facets of the compound eye, called ommatidia
- Student how many eyes does it have in all??
Bugscope Team it has 2 compound eyes and 3 smaller simple eyes called ocelli at the back of the head
Bugscope Team so 5 total
- Student Can they see with colors or in black and white
Bugscope Team they can see colors, some better than others
- Bugscope Team the ommatidia -- the eye facets -- are individual lenses of the eye
- 8:19am
- Student Can they smell stuff
Bugscope Team yes they can, and mostly they do that using setae and other sensory apparatus on the antennae
- Student is the left antenna broken
Bugscope Team yes it looks like it. Limbs are easy to break after the insect dies
Bugscope Team that's because it gets dried out
- Student is it a male or a feamale?
Bugscope Team most bees, ants, and wasps you see are female. This one is female too. You hardly see males around. They are mostly for mating
- Student how long is it
Bugscope Team looks like it is 6 or 7 millimeters long
- Student How big are its eyes
- Student where is it?
- Student how big do bees get?
Bugscope Team once they get wings they do not get bigger -- max is a few centimeters long, I think
- Student do bees have noses
Bugscope Team no, at least not in the same sense as us. They do have special hairs that allows them to smell different things
- Student is the eye round
Bugscope Team it is oddly shaped because it fits around the place where the antennae rest
- Student is there 1000 eyes
Bugscope Team looks like there could be that many facets on the compound eye!
- Student Where are its wings
Bugscope Team they are there but we are looking only at the head now -- you can see them when we change mag
- Student is this bee considered a big bee or a small bee
Bugscope Team it's pretty small
- Student why are there dots on his/her eyes
Bugscope Team those are dust or dirt that have accumulated on the eye
- Student please replay to us
Bugscope Team it is in the scanning electron microscope
- Bugscope Team there are about 20,000 different species of bees in the world
- Student Why do their eyes look like squares
- Student how many simple eyes make up the compound eye
- Student how many hairs do bees have?
Bugscope Team too many to count!
- Student what is a four wing
- Student How much bees are there
Bugscope Team there are said to be about 20,000 species of bees in the world
- Student how long is the antenna
- Student about how many eyes are in the compound eye?
Bugscope Team a few thousand. some wasps, which are related to bees and ants, have as many as 17,000 ommatidia
- 8:24am
- Student how many squares do they have on each eye
- Student why do girls have stingers not boys
Bugscope Team the stingers are modified ovipositors, which are used to lay eggs. boys never lay eggs, of course
- Student do bees die after they sting?
Bugscope Team honeybees die after they sting mammals because the stinger gets caught in the thick skin and pulls out of the bee's body
- Student could you show us another part of the bee?
Bugscope Team ask your teacher to drive to another place
- Student how many bees live in a hive?
Bugscope Team at the height of the season, there could be around 50,000 bees in a hive
- Student why does it look like scales
Bugscope Team a lot of insect morphology looks like scales; it's the way the components of the insect body form
- Student why do only females have stingers
Bugscope Team the females also use their stingers as a way to lay their eggs
- Student are there sections of the eyes
Bugscope Team the individual facets are called ommatidia, and each functions like a lens
- Student do all this kind of bee have the same texture?
Bugscope Team they are similar to this but not all exactly the same
- Bugscope Team there are wasps called parasitic wasps that lay their eggs in other insects
- Bugscope Team now we are up close on the stinger, which has sharp cutting edges that can slide side by side to cut your skin
- Bugscope Team one of the entomologists we work with says there is a parasitic wasp for every insect and every life stage of every insect
- 8:30am
- Student where is the stinger?
- Student what part of the body is the computer showing
- Bugscope Team some of the setae (the hairs) we see are microsetae, and the provide pattern as well as help the insect regulate its temperature.
- Student what are the main parts on the insect?
Bugscope Team an insect has a head, a thorax, an abdomen, six legs, and two antennae
- Student how many time can a bee use its stinger?
Bugscope Team that depends on the bee. Honeybee stingers have barbs so that can get stuck in our skin, or any other mammal's skin. Bumblebees don't have those barbs so they can sting more than once
- Student do bees only sting when they are mad?
Bugscope Team yes I think that is true. wasps may sting to inject eggs, or to immobilize their prey
- Student is the whole body hairy?
Bugscope Team pretty much!
- Student are the swings hairy too
- Student are the hairs on it the same on human bodys or different?
Bugscope Team they're quite different; in some ways they can be like cat or rat whiskers, however
- Student do the hairs ever grow?
- Student what is thestinger made of
Bugscope Team it is made of chitin -- the same protein that the exoskeleton is made of
- Student do bees have millions of layers?
Bugscope Team they have a few layers of chitin (which is the stuff their exoskeleton is made of). It is similar to how we have multiple layers of skin
- Student how many hairs there are on the bee
Bugscope Team there are setae and also microsetae, and there are thousands of each
- Student what are those things on the bee that look like crystals?
Bugscope Team sometimes we find crystals of liquid that has dried
- Student is the bee sting broken?
Bugscope Team no it is not sticking out very far, though
- Student are the hair soft
- 8:35am
- Student does the stinger go into the bees body because it looks very small?
Bugscope Team sometimes you cannot see the stinger because it is all the way inside
- Student is the bee all sorrounded by hairs
Bugscope Team yes it is; the setae help the bee maintain a more constant body temperature
- Student the stinger dosent look so sharp
Bugscope Team it may not look like it under the microscope but it is very sharp to us. What really hurts is the venom they sting us with
- Student What are those things sticking out
- Student why is there so many pointy things?
- Student what are the things sticking out
- Student is the stinger attached to any vital part of the bees inside
Bugscope Team if the stinger is pulled off, the hemolymph (insect blood) will drain out and the bee will die
- Student how big is the antenna
Bugscope Team looks like they are 6 to 7 mm long
- Student what are those little holes?
Bugscope Team there were places in antenna where the setae (hairs) fell off.
- Student what are the little holes
Bugscope Team those are part of the chemosensory components of the antenna
- Student does a bee have 4 wings
Bugscope Team yes it does, and the fore and hindwings connect when they fly, so they have essentially two wings when they fly
- Student how it the antenna attach
Bugscope Team it is a ball and socket joint. You can even see part of the ball
- Student i thought only beetles had mandibles
Bugscope Team lots of insects have mandibles
- Student when bees bite do they inject something into you
- Student are those the teeth
Bugscope Team they are the jaws. They don't have teeth like us, but they use their jaws to do that
- Student are the antennas really small?
Bugscope Team they are fairly big with respect to the size of the head
- Student How much antennas are there in the picture
Bugscope Team you can see only one very well right now
- Student /why is it like bars
Bugscope Team the segments make it more flexible
- Student why do they have mandibles when they have a proboscis?
Bugscope Team often they will have both
- Student what happens when it stings you
Bugscope Team you have a reaction to the sting, and the sting keeps pumping venom into you; the bee bleeds to death
- Student it look like a nail pf a human
- 8:40am
- Student Whata are those jagged things
Bugscope Team those are the edges of the mandibles
- Student How thin is a honeybees wing?
- Student what are the three points???
Bugscope Team they're kind of like the tines of a fork, on the mandibles
- Student why does the bee bleed to death
- Student how long is the sting
Bugscope Team it is relatively short, maybe a few mm, but it has jagged edges that get caught in your skin
- Student how big is the wing
Bugscope Team you can see part of one now; it is maybe a centimeter long. there are four wings
- Student how big is the bee
- Student can the bees move their antenna
Bugscope Team yes they can!
- Student When we were looking at the stinger it didn't look sharp at all. Why is that?
- Student what is that?
- Student why is there hair on the mandibles
Bugscope Team the hair helps tell the bee when they are touching something
- Student how wide is the stinger
Bugscope Team I think a hundred microns or so -- we should go see and use the scalebar to help figure that out.
- Student is this the wing?
Bugscope Team yes it is
- Student what are the lines on the wings
- Student why is the stinger coming out of a hole?
Bugscope Team that is the abdomen -- the round belly of the bee that looks like a tail to us
- Student are those barbs on the edge of the wing?
Bugscope Team those are hamuli
- Student how long is the wing
Bugscope Team you can look at the scalebar and get a good estimate. the scalebar is just below the image on the screen
- Student the wing looks very thin. How thin?
Bugscope Team it is indeed very thin, probably tens of micrometers
- Student is the wing flat
Bugscope Team fairly flat
- Student why are there sharp spikes coming out of their wing?
Bugscope Team those are the hamuli. They hook together the fore- and hind wings so that it is more like flying with one set of wings
- 8:45am
- Student does this bee have scales?
Bugscope Team no it doesn't
- Student whats a hamuli?
Bugscope Team hamuli are the hooks that connect the hind- and forewing when the bee or wasp flies
- Bugscope Team these are the hamuli
- Student how good is there hearing
Bugscope Team it is pretty good; they use their setae to listen as well -- sound is a vibration they can pick up with their setae
- Student what are those barbed thiings?
Bugscope Team those are the hamuli
- Student what do they eat?
- Student what are the stripes
- Student are there hairs on the wing
Bugscope Team yes there are
- Bugscope Team the hamuli are clips that the bee uses to connect the fore- and hindwings when the bee flies
- Student what are the spikes not on the top of the wing but on the wing?
Bugscope Team those are microsetae; they strengthen the wing and also prevent it from sticking too tightly to a surface when the wing is wet
- Student how long do honey bees live up to?
Bugscope Team the queen may live for a few years; I think most bees live for 6 weeks or so
- Student how small is a reguler bee(not put under a microscope) in centimeters?
Bugscope Team often less than 2 centimeters
- 8:50am
- Student how long is the wing?
Bugscope Team I think about a centimeter.
- Student are those arcs or hooks?
Bugscope Team they are hooks, you just can't see the ends from here
- Student what are those spikes?
Bugscope Team those are microsetae, which are not sensory
- Student is a bees skin a close compareson to ours?
Bugscope Team it's not really skin -- it's more like a shell, like a shrimp shell. and that is why they have all of those setae sticking through it -- so they can sense the environment
- Student what are the white lines on the wing
Bugscope Team those are wrinkles in the wing
- Student when do new born bees fly?
Bugscope Team from about 16 to 24 days after they are eggs
- Student what is that?
Bugscope Team now we can see that the head is about 2 millimeters wide
- Bugscope Team insects do not have skin, or teeth; they have an exoskeleton, which is like if we were wearing a suit of armor
- Bugscope Team the mandibles are hardened with elements such as calcium or zinc
- 8:58am
- Bugscope Team this is a stinkbug...
- Teacher Our next class has just arrived. Just getting them oriented. The questions will start to stream in again...:)
- Bugscope Team cool
- Bugscope Team back onto the bee head
- Bugscope Team you are driving a $600,000 scanning electron microscope from your classroom
- Bugscope Team the images that you see are live images from the microscope, but the insects are dead
- Bugscope Team the insects have been mounted on an aluminum stub and coated with gold-palladium to make them conductive
- Bugscope Team the images we see are in black and white because we are not using light
- Teacher Are different layers on the eye, or just one layer?
Bugscope Team we are looking only at the surface of the eye -- there are other internal components
- Bugscope Team the facets we see are like individual lenses
- 9:03am
- Bugscope Team having a compound eye gives the insect much better peripheral vision
- Bugscope Team also, it lets the insect see and react quickly to changes in the visual field
- Student what are the dots on the eye?
- Bugscope Team there is a multitude of images generated by all of those dots -- the lenses of the compound eye
- Student Are those hairs around the eyes?
Bugscope Team yes
- Student why does the bee's eye look like it's a pattern
Bugscope Team it is a pattern that best suits the domelike shape of the eye
- Student Why do Bees need a a proboscis what does it help them do
Bugscope Team the proboscis helps them gather nectar and pollen
- Student how many of the little squares are there?
Bugscope Team there are several thousand per compound eye
- Student Are the dots square or round?
- Student how do they pick up pollen with their legs ( pollen baskets)
Bugscope Team this bee does not have pollen baskets, but when they do have them, they spread pollen onto the baskets, where it gathers almost like butter
- Student are there nay patterns on the bugs?
- Student what are the squares called?
Bugscope Team ommatidia
- Student what are the hairs for?
Bugscope Team many of the hairs, called 'setae,' are sensory
- Student How big is the eye and how big are the hairs???
- 9:08am
- Bugscope Team insects have setae because they do not have skin; instead they have an exoskeleton, which is like a shell
- Student so is the pollen sticky, or does it just stick naturally?
Bugscope Team it is sticky
- Student why does a bee need a forewing and a hindwing
- Student how come the bee's eye looks ike a pattern on a beehive
Bugscope Team the same pattern repeats itself in nature; it is the best shape for close packing of something that is basically round into a dome
- Student What is the Antennae for?
Bugscope Team the antennae have lots and lots of setae and other types of chemical sensors on them
- Student how many hairs do they have
Bugscope Team thousands, and they have a variety of purposes
- Student Why is the eye called compound eye
- Student how fast do the bees fly
- Student what are the simple eyes for?
Bugscope Team the simple eyes, called ocelli, help the insect keep from getting lost
- Student how strong is the bees bite force
- Student why do the bees die when they sting
- Student do the black and yellow strips help them
Bugscope Team in zebras the alternating black and yellow stripes confuse biting flies; it is possible there is a similar function with bees avoiding parasitic wasps
- Student why do they need the the pollen basket
- Student whats the difference between the hindwing andthe forwing
Bugscope Team one is smaller, and one has clips on it so that they can both connect
- Student what is the largest bee
- Student how strong is the bees sting
Bugscope Team it is made of hardened chitin, probably comparable to the mandibles we see now
- 9:13am
- Student what does the hindwing do?
- Student how do they make the honey
Bugscope Team I believe it is mostly nectar mixed with saliva
- Student are the antenna for feel,smell,or another sence
Bugscope Team mostly for smell, but also feel and also for hot/cold sensing
- Student Does pollen basket suck in nectar or it just sticks?
Bugscope Team the pollen basket holds pollen, and pollen is sticky
- Student what are the hairs for
Bugscope Team some of the fine hairs (setae) are for thermoregulation -- maintaining a constant body temperature
- Student why are the stingers only on females
- Student How many simple eyes does the bee have????
- Student how many eyes do bees have
- Student what are the antene for
Bugscope Team the antennae help the bees pick up chemical scents in the environment
- Student what is the difrene betwen a bee and a wasp
- Student do bees sting other bees
Bugscope Team yes but it does not kill them to sting other insects, only mammals
- Student how many joints on a bees body
Bugscope Team not sure, but we could try to count; just one limb could have 20 jouints
- Student are sometimes bees canibals and if yes what are the name of the spicies
- Student Do bees have hearts??
Bugscope Team kind of
- Student what are the little hairs on the anttena called
- Student sem ,do they have a noes
Bugscope Team not like we do; they breathe through spiracles and smell using various setae
- Student how many sections on a bees anttena
- Student how big can bees get
- Student How fast can a bee fly
- 9:18am
- Student what does the antonomy of a bee look like
Bugscope Team they have a head, two antennae, mandibles, a proboscis with a tongue called a glossa, four palps, a thorax, two wings, an abdomen, six legs...
- Student what animal eats a honey bee
- Student how do bees make honey
- Student Is there any visable difference between a queen bee and the workers
- Student what are the teeth things
- Student why do bees die when they sting people
Bugscope Team because human (mammal) skin is thick, and the stinger gets caught in it and torn out
- Student How many pollin baskets do they have
Bugscope Team one on each side
- Student Where is bees heart located
Bugscope Team inside the body
- Student How big are they?
- Student how old can it be
- Student how long do bees live
Bugscope Team a queen can live 3 to 5 years, but workers and drones live from maybe 40 days to a few months
- Student how long can they fly
- Student when honey bee dies what happens to it
Bugscope Team its body is recycled by bacteria and fungus and other insects that might eat the body
- Student How big can it get
- Student How big can a bee be
- Student why is the bee so hairy
- Student why is the stinger only on females
- Student How big is the stnger
- Student Why are they so hairy?
Bugscope Team some of the setae (hairs) help regulate the temperature, some produce color, and some of the larger setae are sensory -- for touch, hot/cold, and chemicals in the air
- Student What do bees use their jaws for?
Bugscope Team they chew things like pollen, etc.
- Student Do they eat the honey
- Student howl
- Student What is the stinger made of
Bugscope Team it's made of chitin, the same material the rest of the exoskeleton is made of
- Student Can bees be twins?
- Student What happens to the queen when it dies
Bugscope Team it is tossed out of the hive and a new queen is 'activated'
- 9:24am
- Student What do the bees do in the winter?
- Student What is royal jelly
Bugscope Team that is what is fed to prospective queens in greater quantities than to workers or drones so that the queens become queems
- Student how meny times can a bee sting
Bugscope Team the honeybee stinger has barbs on it, which when used on a mammal's skin, makes the stinger get stuck, which is why the honeybee can only sting once. Bumblebees and wasps can sting multiple times
- Student how long is a bee
Bugscope Team a few centimeters
- Student How long do they live?
Bugscope Team queens can live a couple years, but the rest of the bees live for a few weeks
- Student How bigis a bee hive
- Student How many eggs does the queen lay a day
Bugscope Team a well-fed queen at the right time of year can lay 2000 eggs/day
- Student How much pollen can a bee hold in their pollen baskets?
- Student How big is the biggest bee
Bugscope Team they can be several centimeters long, and normally the biggest would be a queen
- Student how much honey does a colony of bees collect per year
- Student I know there are types of bees but what is this bee?
- Student can a queen bee sting more than once????
- Student collect per day
- Student can animals die from a bee sting?????????
Bugscope Team yes
- Student How come only female bees have stingers?
Bugscope Team the stingers are also ovipositors, where the eggs come out
- Student Is it easier to see through the simple eyes or the compound eye?
Bugscope Team the simple eyes only register light and dark, we think, so the compound eyes are better
- Student Can a bee have 2 stingers?????????????
- Student How much bees live in one hive?????
Bugscope Team at the height of the season, there could be around 50,000 bees in a hive
- Student How much honey can a bee make in a day?
- 9:29am
- Student what are the hairs on the edge for?????
- Student How many worker bees are there in a colony
Bugscope Team there can be a few thousand to millions depending on the size of the colony and the species of bees
- Student do different bees have different hive?
Bugscope Team yes, different species wouldn't live together. also when there are too many bees in a hive, some will migrate and build a new hive
- Student What is the wing made out of
Bugscope Team it is made of chitin, kind of like what your fingernails are made of
- Student how strong are a live bees wings
- Student How much nectar is needed to make a jar of honey?
- Student Where is there heart???????????????????
Bugscope Team it is inside the body cavity; they have an open circulation, however; it's not like they have veins and arteries
- Student what does a live bee eat besides necter
- Student How much honey is there made in a year and a day?????
- Student How many worker bees are there in a colony
Bugscope Team most of the bees in a hive are workers, so there are around 20,000 or so workers
- Student what is a hamuli
- Student how many eggs can a queen bee lay in her life time?????????
Bugscope Team about a million eggs!
- Student what is a hamuli
- Student How long is the forewing? The hindwing?
Bugscope Team we can see that they are close to the same length, about 6 to 7 millimeters
- Student Can there ever be 2 queens?????????????????????????????
- Student what are those spike
Bugscope Team those are hamuli, which are hooks that connect the fore- and hindwings when the bee flies
- Student how many bees can live in a hive?????????
- Student How much necter does a worker bee collect in a day
Bugscope Team I am not sure.
- Student How many eggs can a queen lay in a day?
Bugscope Team some of the references say 2000
- Student How big is a hair
Bugscope Team they can be a few millimeters to much smaller
- Student what do the wax glands do????
- 9:34am
- Student How strong are bees wings
Bugscope Team they wear their wings out over a few weeks and cannot fly; whereupon they may be eaten by other insects
- Student what is a hamuli
Bugscope Team they are hooks that are used to attach the fore- and hind-wings together to make it fly like there is just one set of wings
- Student How many bees are there ina caolony
Bugscope Team 5000 to over 100,000, generally
- Student How many hairs are on the average sized bee?
- Student Do the forewing and the hindwing look the same or different?
- Student How many hairs on the average sized bee
- Student why do the bee's sting
Bugscope Team it's to protect their hive when they feel threathened
Bugscope Team threatened even
- Student Thank you for answering our questions!
- Student thank you for answering our questions
- Student How many males are ther in a colon
Bugscope Team there can be 300-3000 drones
- Student THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Student thank you
- Student Thank you!!!!
- Teacher We are wrapping up this class. Mrs. N's class says "We are very thankful for your teaching us about bees!"
Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Student thank you
- Bugscope Team sorry we could not get to everyone's questions
- Student Do bees ever not work and have FUN??????????????
Bugscope Team no sorry
- Student Can they have different colared wings??
Bugscope Team they usually have transparent wings
- Student why do the bees sting?
Bugscope Team to protect the hive, generally
- Teacher Our next class is coming in about 5 minutes, I will orient them and then the questions will start! :)
- Student how can a live bee fly if it has such thin wings?
Bugscope Team eventually the wings will become shredded and the bee will not be able to fly
- 9:44am
- Bugscope Team bee right back...
- Bugscope Team obee kaybee I am back
- Teacher Hi from Mrs. R's class!
- Bugscope Team please let us know when you have questions about bees or other insects or how the scanning electron microscope works
- Bugscope Team Hello!
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Team We have one bee in the 'scope today, and lots of other insects/arthropods.
- Bugscope Team this is the bee...
- Bugscope Team you can see its head, its antennae, its compound eyes, and its mandibles
- Bugscope Team the pollen basket is basically the bee's knee
- 9:49am
- Teacher In size, how big is the pollen basket?
Bugscope Team sometimes they are on one sides of one set of limbs and just a few millimeters long rear limbs
- Bugscope Team this is part of one of the compound eyes
- Bugscope Team they're called compound eyes because they have many individual facets called ommatidia that function as individual lenses
- Student why are the intenas different ways
Bugscope Team the antennae are moveable, so they are oriented however the insect wants them
- Student is the eye made of the san
Bugscope Team the compound eye is made of the same stuff as the exoskeleton- chitin. There are thousands of ommatidia within the eye, which are the individual facets.
- Student How big is the bee's knee
Bugscope Team just a few millimeters -- very small
- Student what is the compound eye
Bugscope Team it means there are facets within it that can each see something
- Student what type of bee is it?
Bugscope Team I am not sure -- it is likely a worker rather than a drone, since it has relatively small eyes
- Student is the eye made of the same material as the human eye?
Bugscope Team no. they are made of various kinds of protein, and many components are made of chitin
- Bugscope Team you can see that the ommatidia are scratched up
- 9:54am
- Student how fast do bees work?
Bugscope Team they can fly 12 to 15 to 20 miles per hour, and they don't really waste time; hard to say just how fast they work, though
- Student how do bees sting
Bugscope Team they do it to protect the hive.
- Student how wide in millmeters are their wings?
Bugscope Team these are perhaps 3 to 4 millimeters, maybe a bit wider at the widest point
- Student what is the average amount of pollen they can carry
Bugscope Team it has to be just a few milligrams; I am not sure
- Student is the wing transparent?
Bugscope Team yes though you can't really see that with this microscope. This microscope uses electrons to image. The electrons are beamed at the sample and secondary electrons bounce off the surface. So essentially we only see the surface of things
- Student how long is the tounge?
Bugscope Team it can be a few millimeters in some bees
- Bugscope Team now we are looking at the mandibles, which are like our jaws
- Bugscope Team the mandibles help grasp things and also chew
- Student do bees have breaks from working?
Bugscope Team they have a somnolent state, kind of like sleeping
- Student where are the most bees found in the US?
Bugscope Team they are everywhere, but mostly where it is warmer
- Student what do bees do in the winter
Bugscope Team sometimes the bees, especially the queens will overwinter in houses or will burrow a hole in the ground
- 9:59am
- Bugscope Team in the winter, people who raise bees may feed them high-fructose corn syrup. that is said to be potentially one reason for colony collapse disorder, because corn had been sprayed with insecticide and was then processed into HFCS.
- Student Do bee's have teeth
Bugscope Team not really -- sometimes the mandibles are hardened with calcium or zind
- Bugscope Team oops I meant to type 'zinc'
- Student are there any poisoned bees
Bugscope Team yes there are, still
- Student Do some bees not sting?
Bugscope Team yes some species do not sting; when I lived in Okinawa we had big fat 'tickle bees' that did not sting.
- Student how do the bees cover the cells with wax (how do they make it) ?
Bugscope Team the wax is said to come from glands in the legs of some bees
- Bugscope Team when the honey has aged properly the cells with honey in them are sealed with wax
- Student How bog is a bee
Bugscope Team most are less than 2 centimeters long
- Bugscope Team this is cool -- this is a segment of the antenna
- Bugscope Team you can see that it has a variety of setae on it
- Student do bees steal honey from other hives?
Bugscope Team I don't think they do, but animals do.
- Student How many hairs on a bees body??
Bugscope Team there are too many hairs to count. There are even more hairs on a bumblebee
- Student how long is a antenna
Bugscope Team they can be several millimeters long
- 10:05am
- Student How many kinds of bees are there?
Bugscope Team there are said to be about 20,000 species of bees
- Bugscope Team many of the sensory structures on the antenna are chemosensors
- Bugscope Team the long narrow pits are called placoid sensillae
- Student how hevy can a bee whight
Bugscope Team a worker is said to weigh about 90 milligrams; that is less than a tenth of a gram
- Student how many eggs will they lay?
Bugscope Team a healthy queen, well fed and in the right season, can lay 2000 eggs per day
- Student Can Bees close their eyes??
Bugscope Team no they do not have eyelids like we do. The only way they can get stuff out of their eyes is by using their forelegs to gently wipe the dirt or dust away
- Student Do bees have any other property besides the hive:]?
Bugscope Team they protect the area around the hive as well
- Student do bees have a heart?
Bugscope Team they have an aorta, to us like a primitive heart, that pumps hemolymph within the body cavity
- Bugscope Team you can see lots of setae on the bee's face
- 10:10am
- Bugscope Team the 'hairs' we see are called 'setae,' pronounced see-tee.
- Student do bees carry any desiese
Bugscope Team they can but they aren't commutable to humans
- Bugscope Team which is where the sting is
- Bugscope Team most of the sting is on the inside, normally
- Student is there any layers on the stinger
- Student do bees have noses
Bugscope Team not like we do, but they have special hairs that can smell or taste things
- Student how many types of bees die after they sting
Bugscope Team just honey bees do
- Bugscope Team when honeybees sting other insects, they do not die; it is only when they sting mammals that the stinger gets caught in the thick skin and pulled out of the bee, whereupon it bleeds out and dies
- Student Why are bees yellow
Bugscope Team the yellow is to warn other things to leave them alone.
- Student do bees have more than 1 stinger
Bugscope Team just one, but it has parts that can slide side by side to cut into you
- Student how big is the queen bee
Bugscope Team the queen bee is the biggest of the bees and may be several centimeters -- like four centimeters -- long
- Bugscope Team you can barely see the ridges to the right center that help the stinger cut into your skin
- Student why do bees die right after they sting?
Bugscope Team it's the bees that lose their stinger that do. There is a muscle attached to the stinger that pumps the venom into its victims. That comes out with the stinger and the bee essentially bleeds out. The little muscle will continue to pump venom for a little while
- Bugscope Team only females have stingers, which are modified ovipositors
- 10:15am
- Student do bees have hands
Bugscope Team they have six grasping claws that function like hands do for us
- Student how do they breath
Bugscope Team they breathe through a series of pores in the body that are called spiracles
- Bugscope Team an ovipositor is used to lay eggs, so only females have them
- Bugscope Team good job driving!
- Bugscope Team you can now see how the stinger cuts you
- Student how big are the egg
Bugscope Team in honeybees the eggs are said to be 1 to 1.5 millimeters long
- Student do they eat other insects
Bugscope Team no they don't
- Student how do you know what is the queen bee besides size
Bugscope Team They are distorted looking when they quit flying and spend the rest of their lives inside the hive. The abdomen is large compared to that of the other bees.
- Student how long is the stinger?
Bugscope Team this one is just a few millimeters but we cannot see all of it
- Student how many bees can live in a hive ???
Bugscope Team around 50,000 can live in a hive
- Bugscope Team now we are looking at the limbs
- Student is their twin eggs
Bugscope Team i don't think so, but I am not really sure
- 10:20am
- Student How do bees sting
Bugscope Team they point the tip of their abdomen at you and use their muscles to make the stinger come out
- Student how long is a baby bee concidered a baby bee
Bugscope Team I think about 16 to 24 days from egg to being able to fly
- Bugscope Team I have read that eventually the wings get torn up from incessant flying. when the bee cannot fly it will get eaten by something else.
- Bugscope Team this is one of the hindwings, which has hooks on it called hamuli
- Bugscope Team we can see the hooks now
- Student how do queen bees becom queen bees
- Bugscope Team they fasten over a ridge on the back edge of the forewing so that when the bee flies it essentially has two wings
- Student can bees get sick
Bugscope Team yes they can get diseases
- Student how do queen bees become queen bees?
Bugscope Team they are fed more Royal Jelly than other bees, and it stimulates the response.
- 10:25am
- Student how far can a bee fly without stoping
Bugscope Team they can fly 20 miles per hour when they are not burdened; I think they fly constantly during daylight hours when the temperature and wind/rain are not bad, as well as the sunlight.
- Student what happens when a queen bee dies
Bugscope Team they could either try to quickly make a new queen bee by giving a larva some royal jelly. If they can't make a new queen the hive will die
- Student how do bee's communicate while flying?
Bugscope Team I think they can produce pheromones while they fly, but I am not sure. They also use visual signals, as when they dance (not while they're flying) to tell the other bees how far away and where a pollen source is.
- Student can there be two queen bee's?
Bugscope Team if there is a second queen bee, she would leave the hive and make a new hive somewhere else
- Student how do bees learn to fly
Bugscope Team it is pretty much automatic
- Bugscope Team prospective queen bees are said to fight to the death --- if there is more than one
- Student what is royal jelly
Bugscope Team it's made by worker bees from special glands they have
- Student can a queen bee kill a worker bee?
- Student how large can a hive its self??????????
Bugscope Team there can be 100,000 bees easily
- Bugscope Team this is the tip of the wing
- Bugscope Team what we see now is about a half millimeter
- Bugscope Team you can use the micron bar to determine lengths
- Student are bees asinged a sertent flower or area
Bugscope Team they go where the flowers are, and they have preferences
- 10:30am
- Bugscope Team bees can't see red, but they can see blue green and UV
- Bugscope Team the type of flower makes a difference in how the honey tastes
- Bugscope Team the wing has what are called microsetae on it that are not sensory
- Bugscope Team the microsetae clearly add surface area and also likely help with thermoregulation
- Student what is the most kind of flower do they get there ncter from
Bugscope Team they go to all kinds of flowers
- Student do bees argue with eachother and what do they do if they argue
Bugscope Team they don't really argue; they have a common scent, and if they all smell that way they get along
- Student do bees disstrack there enemy
Bugscope Team often it is by stinging
- Student how do bees make a hive
Bugscope Team no it would be just one species. the bees would be able to smell the difference
- Student can there be two kinds of bee's in one hive?
Bugscope Team not two species, but there are worker bees and drone bees in the same hive, plus the queen
- 10:36am
- Student What is the most dangerous type of bee of any time?
Bugscope Team presently the Africanized honeybees are very dangerous, still, because they are so aggressive and attack in large numbers.tt
- Student what is the purpose of buzzing
Bugscope Team it doesn't mean anything to the bees. The buzzing is the sound of the bees flapping
- Student do bees have preiters
- Bugscope Team one professor thinks that loud buzzing helps shake pollen off of flowers
- Teacher Mrs. R's class is about to leave us.
- Student are bees at the bottom of the food chain?
Bugscope Team no; they are likely somewhere in the middle.
- Student how did bee's get their name?
Bugscope Team it is Old English, apparently, and may once have been 'beo'
- Teacher Everyone says "Thank you Scot & Cate & Sem! Have a great day! We learned a lot today!"
Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Bugscope Team thank you for joining us in today's BeeScope
- 10:41am
- Teacher We really appreciate this opportunity! Thanks very much!
- Bugscope Team https://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-193
- Bugscope Team below is your member page:
- Bugscope Team Bye!
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
