Workers are said to be “busy like bees,” but recent research suggests that bees are more like office workers.
Entomologists and engineers in the United States pasted tiny QR codes on the backs of tens of thousands of honey bees in rural Pennsylvania and New York. For unprecedented applications of this technology, paper Published in a magazine in November hardwarehelps scientists and beekeepers study how far insects travel to gather food. Interestingly, this experiment has already shed new light on the mysterious behavior of this important pollinator.
Previous studies have suggested that bees can forage up to 10 kilometers away from their hive, but entomologists hypothesize that this rarely happens. “The goal is to understand whether the 10-kilometre estimate is biologically accurate. Can we accurately determine how far honeybees travel from their hive?” from Penn State University, Pennsylvania. Margarita López Uribe, an entomologist and co-author of the study, told the university: statement.
QR codes are called fiduciary tags and essentially function like badges on office buildings. The researchers developed an automated imaging system with sensors at the hive entrance that record each time a tagged bee enters and exits, allowing entomologists to track individual foraging times. Sensors record individual bee IDs, date, time, temperature, and whether bees are in or out.
While traditional entomological field studies are typically not very hands-on, this approach provides unprecedented insight into bee behavior.
“This technology opens up opportunities for biologists to study systems in ways not previously possible, especially as it relates to organic beekeeping,” López-Uribe said. Organic beekeeping involves maintaining sufficient space from industrial areas to prevent bees from collecting pollen in contaminated areas. However, typical bee foraging distances remain elusive, and USDA organic certification recommendations may be inaccurate in this regard.
“In field biology, we usually only see things with our eyes, but the number of observations we can make as humans will never increase to the number of observations machines can make,” she added. In total, the researchers tagged more than 32,000 bees across six apiaries with QR codes smaller than a human pinky fingernail that did not harm the bees or restrict their movements.
“We specifically targeted young bees so we could more accurately track their age: when they start flying and when they stop,” said Robin Underwood from Pennsylvania, who also participated in the study. Young individuals are easy to handle as they do not sting yet.
So what do bees do?
The researchers observed that most trips from the hive were typically 1 to 4 minutes, with the possibility of a bathroom break or a quick weather check, and even longer trips were less than 20 minutes. However, 34% of the tagged bees left the hive for more than two hours.
This long absence may be due to long foraging trips. For example, longer trips may have corresponded to periods with fewer flowers, during which bees had to travel further to collect rewards. However, the scientists also acknowledged that the data could have been skewed by bees that simply did not return or entered the hive upside down, effectively hiding the QR code from the sensor.
“We also found that bees forage throughout their lives, much longer than originally thought,” Underwood said. She explained that entomologists had previously suggested that honey bees have a lifespan of about 28 days. However, “we’re seeing bees foraging for six weeks. They don’t start foraging until they’re already about two weeks old, so bees live much longer than we thought.” Masu.”
When bees in the same hive actually start foraging, they share information about food sources with each other through the so-called “waggle dance.” The team is now working with researchers at Virginia Tech to match foraging time data with this behavior to continue investigating how far bees travel from their hives.
Perhaps the next step will be to glue a small AirTag to the back.