Connected on 2012-05-04 09:30:00
from Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States
- 7:24 am
- Bugscope Teamsample is pumping down
- Bugscope Team1.7 x 10-3
- Bugscope Team1.6
- 7:29 am
- Bugscope Team1.5
- 7:35 am
- Bugscope Teamnow we're making presets for today's session
- 7:41 am
- Bugscope Teamgood morning!
- Bugscope Teamwelcome to Bugscope!
- TeacherHi- it's Maddy Shapiro for Kelly Susi's class
- TeacherJust setting up student stations
- Bugscope TeamMaddy this is Scott. Good to see you!
- TeacherI tried to log in a computer as student but it wasn't an option - only guest or guest entomologist
- TeacherNever mind:-)
- Bugscope Teamsometimes that happens, not sure why
- 7:47 am
- Bugscope Teamand you fixed it!
- TeacherI think you needed to get logged in as a teacher first
- Bugscope Teammakes sense, so the software knows what IP address to associate with students
- 7:52 am
- 7:57 am
- 8:02 am
- 8:09 am
- 8:15 am
- Bugscope Teamhello!
- Bugscope Teamthis is a palp attached to the glossa -- the tongue of the bee
- TeacherHi Class in not here yet Looking at the presets- they look great!
Bugscope TeamCool!
- Bugscope Teamapparently this honeybee did not have a chance to get out into the world
- Bugscope Teamand collect pollen
- Bugscope Teamthese are chemosensors on the antenna, up close (honeybee)
- Teachervery cool
- TeacherIt was a nurse bee?
Bugscope Teamnot sure
- Bugscope TeamI am not good enough to tell.
- Bugscope Teamnot enough experience with bees to know
- 8:21 am
- Teachervery swarmy spring here in ma
Bugscope Teamgood deal! It seems like it came a little late this year.
- Teacherbad deal for beekeepers who lose their bees!
- Bugscope TeamI was in Cincinnati at Annie's (she used to be our entomologist) several weeks ago, but it was too cold and overcast to catch bees
- Bugscope Teaminteresting the latest news about CCD, with the idea that the problem is nicotinamide pesticide residue in high-fructose corn syrup that many beekeepers use in the winter
- TeacherIt has been such a warm winter and spring here that most pepople's hives survived the winter and built up fast
Bugscope Teamhaha of course I usually do not go outdoors in the daytime
- Teachermaybe that's why backyard beekeepers don't see ccd
Bugscope Teammakes sense, so far, with the timing of the harvest of the nicotinamide-treated corn harvest in 2005, I think they said
- Bugscope Teamthe first of those harvests, that is
- 8:27 am
- Bugscope Teamwe get to work with Alex Wild, sometimes. he's one of the best insect photographers in the world, although he'd be embarrassed to see me say that. he teaches beekeeping here but I have not had a chance to speak with him since that theory came out
- TeacherClass is here!
- Studenthi
- Studenthi
- Bugscope Teamhello everyone!
- Bugscope Teamwelcome to Bugscope!
- Studenthello!
- StudentHello
- StudentHI
- Bugscope Teamhello!
- Bugscope Teamplease let us know when you have questions about anything at all...
- Bugscope Teamthis is the head of a honeybee, a bit hard to tell
- Bugscope Teamits jaw (mandible is in the middle, to the left, and its antennae go horizontally across the top and bottom of the screen
- Studentwhere are the eyes
Bugscope Teamthere is a compound eye to the lower right of the screen.
Bugscope Teamlower right corner is the left eye
- StudentWhy are there segments on the antenna?
Bugscope Teamthe antennae are flexible, and those are joints that allow them to bend the way the bee wants them to
- Bugscope TeamI am sorry the eye is collapsed
- Bugscope Teamthis bee was in ethanol -- someone had collected it and preserved it in ethanol -- and you can see what happened to the eye
- 8:32 am
- Bugscope Teamnow we can see the ommatidia -- the individual eye facets. and we also see lots of setae (hair) on the eye
- Studentwhat are those scales
Bugscope Teamthose are the individual facets, called ommatidia, of the compound eye. They each help with seeing.
- Bugscope Teambees see blues, greens, and ultraviolet
- Studentwhy is there hair coming out of the eye
Bugscope Teamthe hair helps the bee maintain a more constant body temperature, and it is also sensory -- the bee can sense the wind/windspeed through the hair on its eye
- Studentwe noticed that
- Studentwow :)
- Bugscope Teamwe can also see that the setae (the hairs) go through the surface of the eye and connect with nerves on the inside of the head
- Bugscope Teamyou can see now that the ommatidia are neat little hexagons
Bugscope Teamhexagons are the best shape to fit something that curves around- gets as many of the ommatidia to fit in that area as possible
- 8:37 am
- StudentWhy isn't there a king bee.
Bugscope Teamthere are few male bees compared to females, and a king bee is (sadly?) not necessary
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the hindlimbs of the honeybee
- Bugscope Teamif the bee was actively collecting pollen and nectar, it would paste it onto this space on the hindleg and fly back to the hive with it stuck here
- Bugscope Teamkind of like how there isn't a king of england right now :)
Bugscope Teamyeah just not needed
- Studentpollen
- Bugscope Teamone thing they do is carry it from flower to flower, and in that way, some of the pollen from one flower gets spread to another flower, and there is cross-pollination
- StudentHow do they get the pollen in the basket?
Bugscope Teamthey spread it onto the basket, and it sticks there
- 8:43 am
- Studentwhy do they need pollen in the hive?
- Bugscope TeamI had said earlier that the bee collects nectar as well but it does not paste it onto the leg -- it sucks it up into its mouth
- Studentwhat do they do with the poolen
Bugscope Teamthey eat it. They mix the pollen with nectar and some other stuff where it eventually becomes bee bread. It's packed with protein
- Bugscope Teamthey use pollen to feed the colony, as Cate said; when they mix it, they are chewing it
- Studenthow do they make royal jelly
Bugscope Teamroyal jelly comes from special glands in worker bees, and it is fed to all larvae but in different proportions
- 8:49 am
- Studentwhat is this!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bugscope Teamthese are hamuli. They are hooks that bees and wasps have on their wings. They use these hooks to hook the fore- and hind wings together so they would fly with one big pair of wings instead of 2
- StudentHow long can they live without eating
Bugscope Teamnot sure if we know the answer to that, maybe several days or a week
Bugscope Teamthe larvae need constant care and would suffer probably in only a few days if there was no care and no food
- Studentdo they ever fly with just there fore wings
Bugscope Teamno -- the hindwings would get in the way. having four wings means that they can fold more easily when they enter the nest, and when they get out they can just hook their wings together to make two wings
- StudentDo they glide like some birds do??!
Bugscope TeamI don't think they are able to glide; they would glide kind of like rocks
- Studenthow fast can they fly?????
Bugscope Teamthey top out at 20 mph, but typically can fly 10-15 mph when carrying pollen.
- Bugscope Teamwasps and ants are related to bees, and wasps have four wings as well; they also have hamuli
- 8:54 am
- Bugscope Teamwe see lots of tiny parasitoid wasps here in the lab
- Bugscope Teamhumans can run at 7-10 mph, so don't make bees mad!
Bugscope Teamhaha
- Studenthow do they make the hive
Bugscope Teamthey are quite organized. I believe much of the work is done using their mouthparts
- Bugscope Teamwhen I looked this up, the reference I found said that the bees have special wax glands that they use to lay down the hexagonal shapes of the individual cells of the hive, but I don't know where those glands are
- StudentWhy does the pollen have indents
Bugscope TeamI'm not exactly sure, but it is possible that the indents wouldn't be so deep if the pollen grain wasn't so dry
- 8:59 am
- Studentare all pollens shaped the same!
Bugscope Teamno not at all! Some look like balls with spikes all over for example
- StudentWhat happens if the queen bee dies??
Bugscope Teamthe bees will choose a new queen from larvae that they have raised specially, just in case. those larvae are fed a higher concentration of royal jelly that activates different genes and makes the larvae respond by forming a pre-queen
- Bugscope Teamif there are two queens, in some cases they are said to fight over who will become the one queen
- Bugscope Teamusually the other queen will leave and start a new hive
- Bugscope Teamthey will try to quickly make a queen out of a larva by giving it extra royal jelly
- StudentWhat happens if the queen dies and there waiting for the new one to grow???
Bugscope TeamIf the new queen does not mature soon enough, the colony may not survive
- StudentWhat happens if a bees entenna breaks
Bugscope Teamthey will most likely die since that is how they get information. Also they may bleed out some from the wound
- Studentwhat is this thing??!!
Bugscope Teamthis is the surface of one segment of one of the antennae
- 9:05 am
- Bugscope Teammany insects, including bees, use their antennae to collect information, and that comes mostly in the form of chemical signals
- Bugscope Teamthe antennae are covered with different kinds of setae and other organelles whose purpose is to collect chemical information
- Bugscope Teamhere we see both hairlike setae and flat disclike placoid sensillae that we believe collect chemical signals from the air or from touch
- Studentwhat color is their blood
Bugscope Teaminsect blood is called hemolymph, and usually it is clear. when you smash an insect and see yellow goo it is because other things got mixed with the hemolymph
- Studenthow to bees breathe
Bugscope Teamthey have little portholes along their body called spiracles that are attached to trachea. The trachea runs through the body to supply the oxygen
- Bugscope Teamhere we see the glossa, which is the tongue, and we also see the hardened sheath that usually protects the glossa
- 9:10 am
- Studentwhat organs get ripped out when they sting
Bugscope Teamthere is a muscle that is attached to the stinger that gets ripped out. It is the muscle that pumps venom into her victims. After it gets ripped out of the body, it continues to pump the venom even.
- Studentis this the glossa:)
Bugscope Teamyes it is!
- Bugscope Teamthe glossa, you can see, is much like a fine paintbrush
- Studentwhat is the function of the thorax
Bugscope Teamit's where the legs are attached...
- Bugscope Teamnow we see part of the maxilla. above, and in the center we see a palp that has sensory setae on it like tastebuds
- 9:15 am
- Studenthow do they get the nectar out of the flower?
Bugscope Teamthey extend the maxillae, with the glossa inside, into the flower, and they can also extend the glossa beyond the maxillae; the brush-like glossa soaks up nectar from the flower
- StudentWhat is that little thing hanging out the glossa
Bugscope Teamthat is a small labial palp that helps the bee taste its prospective food
- StudentWhy don't drones go into another hive once kicked out?
Bugscope Teambees and other insects as well can tell who belongs by their scent
- Bugscope Teaminsects really do collect and use much more chemical scent information than we do, so it is sometimes hard for us to understand. for example, if you were to take the smell of a dead ant and brush it onto a live ant, the ants that clean up the trash in the nest would throw that live ant away even if it was struggling and clearly alive
- 9:20 am
- Studentwhat are the exoskletan made of????
Bugscope Teamit is made of chitin.
Bugscope Teamwhich is similar to keratin, which is what nails are made of
- Studentwhen they go far away to get nector how do they find their way back
Bugscope Teamon the top of their heads they have three more eyes, simple eyes called ocelli; those eyes are not as good at seeing as the compound eyes, but they help the bees orient with the sun and shadows, and they help the bees keep from getting lost
- Bugscope Teamhere we are looking at two tarsi, which are the final several segments of the limbs
- Bugscope Teamthe endmost parts of the tarsi are the claws, and we see two sets here although it is a little tricky to tell what is what
- Bugscope Teamall insects have a head, a thorax, six legs, two antennae, and an abdomen
- Bugscope Teamoften all six legs have claws at their ends
- Bugscope Teama spider does not have a head and a thorax (which is where, as Cate said, the legs are attached to the body); a spider has a cephalothorax, which means 'head-thorax'
- Bugscope Teamnow we see one of the claws up close, and also a seta that when it is bent lets the bee know that it is grasping or at least touching something
- 9:25 am
- Studentwhat is this
Bugscope Teamthis is one of the parts of a claw. There should be another around somewhere. They close the 2 parts together to pinch whatever they want
- Studentlooks like a basket:-)!!!!!!!!!!!
- Studentwhy does the queen need a stinger
Bugscope Teamin the case of the queen, the stinger may function as a stinger but it is used for its other purpose -- as an ovipositor -- for laying eggs. very important!
- Studenthow come one part of the claw is so much bigger than the other?
Bugscope Teamwe didn't get to see the other half; what we saw was a single claw with two 'tines' on it
- Studentwhy dosn't the queen bee leave the hive?
Bugscope Teamtheir main job is to lay eggs, but sometimes they do have to leave if they need to leave the hive to move to a new location
- 9:31 am
- StudentCan bees sting other bees
Bugscope Teamyes they can, but it does not kill them to sting other insects. when bees sting mammals, the mammals' thick skin retains the stinger, and that is why the bee dies -- its stinger and the outboard motor attached to it get pulled out
- Bugscope Teamright now we are looking at scales from a butterfly's wing
- Bugscope Teamscales are kind of like feathers are to birds, but they have lots of purposes
- Bugscope Teambutterflies, moths, mosquitoes, silverfish and very few other insects have scales
- Bugscope Teamwhen you rub a butterfly's wing and it feels silky and fine powder comes off, the fine powder is hundreds of scales like the two we see right now
- Bugscope Teamwhen an insect like a moth or butterfly flies into a spiderweb, it can sometimes escaped because the scales will stick to the web and come loose from the wings; in that way the insect can slip away
- Bugscope Teamthis is a very sad-looking housefly
- 9:37 am
- Bugscope Teamits compound eyes are to the left and right, and in the top center of where we are looking now are the bases of the antennae, which broke off
- Studentis that a bug in its mouth
Bugscope Teamit is a mouthpart it uses to sponge up liquids to eat. It first spits on the food to liquify it enough
- Bugscope Teamabove the sponging mouthpart are two palps
- Bugscope Teamsorry this fly is so dirty!
- TeacherThank you!
- StudentThnx
- Studentthank you
- Studentthx
- StudentTHANX YOU
- Studentwe had fun
- Bugscope TeamThank you!
- Studentbye
- StudentTHANK YOU SO MUCH WE LEARNED SOOOO MUCH
- StudentWE LEARNED A LOT
- Student=()
- TeacherThanks for your time
- StudentTHANK YOU
- TeacherWe need to leave now
- Bugscope TeamBye!
- Studentwe learned so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Bugscope Teamthanks for joining us this morning!
- Studentbye bye
- StudentTHANX
- Student bye bye1
- StudentThank you for your time. We had a great time!!!!!!!!!
- Bugscope Teamyou can see chat and images from today by visiting your member pagr
- Bugscope Teampage*
- Studentbye!!!!!!! ;)
- Bugscope Teamhttps://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2011-133