Vespidae: undergraduate bees, usually called wasps or wasps, are medium to large in size, with smooth body surface and colored spots. The palate is well developed, with long and narrow wings, which are folded vertically when at rest. Generally, the abdomen does not contract, showing the shape of abdominal handle. Vespidae has simple social organizations, including queen bees, drones and worker bees, and often builds a paper bell-shaped or layered hive on which they gather collectively.
bee
Bees belong to Hymenoptera, Apiidae. They are 8-20 mm long, tan or dark brown, and have thick hair. The head is almost as wide as the chest. Antennas are knee-shaped, compound eyes are oval and hairy, mouthparts are chewing and sucking, and hind feet are powder-carrying feet. Two pairs of membrane wings; The front wing is big, the rear wing is small, and the front and rear wings are connected by wing hooks. The abdomen is nearly oval, with less body hair than the chest and claws at the end of the abdomen. Bees are completely metamorphosed and go through four stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult.
In the bee society, they still live a matriarchal clan life. Among the members of their big family, there is a queen bee (queen bee), a female bee with reproductive ability, responsible for laying eggs and reproducing, and at the same time "ruling" this big family. Although the queen bee has mated, her eggs are not all refined. It can give birth to a fertilized egg and develop into a female bee (infertility) according to the needs of a big family. You can also give birth to the last fertilized egg and develop into a drone later. When the members of this big family multiply too much, they will be grouped. The process of grouping is as follows: worker bees make a special hive-Wangtai, in which the queen bee lays fertilized eggs; After the larvae hatch, the worker bees are treated specially and fed with highly nutritious royal jelly made in the body. After the larva develops into an adult, it becomes a new queen bee with reproductive ability. The new queen bee leads some worker bees to form a new colony. Apis cerana Fabr and A. mellifera L. are both beneficial insects that are widely raised. In the breeding process, after the new queen bee is born, it must be grouped manually, otherwise a queen bee will lead a group of worker bees to leave the hive and fly away, losing the colony. In fact, beekeepers artificially produce royal jelly by making some queen bee platforms and putting them in beehives for queen bees to lay eggs. When worker bees feed on royal jelly, beekeepers will take it out soon. In fact, beekeepers use deception, which shows that even smart bees are sometimes deceived.
There are a large number of drones, and a group may be nearly a thousand. The only duty of a drone is to mate with the queen bee. When mating, the queen bee flies out of the nest, and the drones in the whole group chase after it, which is called wedding flight. The queen bee's marriage flight is carried out through flight competitions, and only the winner can become a spouse. After mating, the drone's genitals fall off from the queen's genitals. At this time, the drone has completed its lifelong mission and died. Those who failed to mate with the queen bee. They only know how to eat and drink, but they don't collect honey, and they become redundant idlers in the bee colony. After a long time, all the workers will deport them. Beekeepers don't want to keep too many drones in the bee colony and consume honey, so they are artificially eliminated. From this perspective,
The number of worker bees in this group is the largest. The number of worker bees kept by beekeepers in a colony varies from season to season, generally 2 1500. Worker bees are the most industrious. The phrase "little bees are busy all day, collecting flowers and making honey" only refers to what worker bees say. Besides collecting powder and making honey, they also build nests, feed larvae, clean the environment and defend ant colonies. It is also the task of worker bees. From spring to late autumn, bees are busy every day during the flowering period of plants. Winter is the only short leisure time for bees. But the cold weather and the low temperature in the hive are not good for bees, because bees are warm animals, and their body temperature changes with the temperature of the surrounding environment. The clever little bee came up with a special way to resist the cold. When the temperature in the nest is as low as 65438 03℃. When they form a spherical ball together, the lower the temperature, the tighter the ball will be, which will reduce the surface area of the bee colony, increase the density and prevent excessive cooling. According to the measurement, in the coldest time, the temperature in the bee ball can still be maintained at around 24℃. At the same time, they also use more honey and exercise to generate heat to raise the temperature in the hive. In cold weather, the outside temperature of the bee ball is lower than the center of the ball, so the bees on the surface of the ball get into the center of the ball. Smart bees have their own ingenious methods. They don't need to break up the ball and climb out to eat separately, but pass it on to each other to get food. This can keep the temperature in the ball unchanged or lower, which is conducive to safe wintering.
All social insects originated from solitary insects. Representatives of all stages from solitary to complex society can be found in modern bees.
Hornet-Primary Insect Society: The social rank of hornet is very low. Every autumn, the female will mate with the drones of other bees, and then the drones will die. The next spring, many females build nests together and lay eggs in the nest room. At the same time, these females compete with each other for the highest rank. After the establishment of a superior society, the highest-ranking female bee has the exclusive right to lay eggs, and the rest can only be subordinate if they don't fly away. Their eggs can even be eaten by the highest-ranking female bees. They can take part in the work of feeding larvae, or they can "idle around" and do nothing. In autumn, the highest-ranking female bees give birth to unfertilized eggs and develop into drones. At this time, both the non-working female bees and the male bees fly in and mate with the males in other hives, respectively. The male bees die, and the female bees spend the winter and build nests the next year. The next spring, the female bees re-built their nests and laid eggs. There is no clear division of labor in the bee colony, and all females have the ability to lay eggs, but most females are not allowed to lay eggs because of their superior grade.
Bee colony in bee society is much larger than wasp colony. The largest bee colony is worker bees, which can be as many as 30,000 to 40,000. There are few drones, only one female bee, the queen bee. The genetic composition of worker bees and queen bees is the same. After the fertilized eggs produced by the queen bee develop into larvae, if the larvae receive more sugar and less nectar from protein, they will develop into worker bees.
Worker bee: fertilized eggs hatch into white larvae in a hexagonal honeycomb for about 3 days. The larvae grow into pupae in about 6 days, and emerge after12 days, biting through the wax cover and coming out. The earliest job of new worker bees is to clean the hive and feed the larvae. Worker bees have glands that secrete royal jelly in their heads. About a week later, the wax glands in the abdomen of the worker bees developed and the nesting work began. Identify newcomers by tentacles. If the new couple are bees in their own nests and the signals match, put them in. If it is an alien bee or other animals such as wasps, it will be stabbed to death, and the worker bees themselves often die because they lose their thorns. This is a very prominent "altruistic" behavior. Three weeks later, worker bees began to go out to collect nectar and pollen, and died of old age about six weeks later.
Queen bee: The fertilized nest that will develop into queen bee will be produced in a special hive or "queen bee platform" which is larger and higher than the general hive. The queen bee can secrete pheromones, inhibit the ovarian development of worker bees, and prevent worker bees from developing into queen bees. At the same time, it also has the functions of preventing worker bees from building palaces and cultivating new bees. If the queen bee dies or disappears, worker bees will soon detect pheromones and make the bees swell.
Drone: I can't collect honey, and it's useless after mating. In autumn, they are stabbed to death by worker bees or driven out of their nests and die.
Nest-dividing: Spring is full of flowers and abundant food, resulting in a large number of new worker bees. At this time, the pheromone secreted by the queen bee is not enough to control the whole nest. Worker bees built palaces and provided royal jelly for the larvae in the palaces, so a new queen bee was born. At this time, bees can be divided into two categories. The old queen bee leads some worker bees to fly away and live under the treetops or eaves. When a suitable area is found, they will build nests and continue to lay eggs. The new bee in the palace grew up. Under the protection of some worker bees, it flew out of the hive and began to "travel and get married". During the flight, the queen bee secretes pheromones to lure drones from different nests to mate.
The queen bee only "travels and marries" once in her life, but she can copulate with many drones. After returning to the hive, the only task in her life is to lay eggs. The sperm received by the queen bee in a flight is stored in the seminal vesicle and can be used for 5 to 7 years.
Bee language: bees are extremely efficient in collecting honey. This is mainly because bees have a very complicated communication system, which was discovered by the famous Austrian biologist Karl von Frisch after 20 years of hard research. This complex communication system refers to the "dance" of bees on the surface of the hive, which contains a variety of information such as the distance, direction, nature and quality of honey sources. When a worker bee finds a rich honey source, it will "dance" on the vertical surface of the hive to inform other bees in the hive of its discovery. If the food is nearby (within 60 meters), bees will "dance".
The hive is dark. Bees can't see the dance, but they can follow the dancer's footsteps and flap their wings to feel the information. At the same time, they can taste the food they picked from the dancer's mouth, smell the aroma of honey source and the smell of volatile oil secreted by its abdomen. After receiving the message, these followers left the nest and flew in all directions. After they find the honey source, they fly back to the nest with nectar or pollen, store the collected things in a small room and dance around to attract people.
The dance steps form a horizontal figure of eight. When bees dance along the vertical axis of the ∝, they will make a clear sound and their bellies will swing to both sides. When dancing, the angle between the vertical axis of the ∞ character and the gravity line is equal to the angle between the shortest flight direction of sunlight and the honey source.
The number of dances and the intensity of movements can also provide information on the richness and sugar content of honey sources. The behavior of bees is rich and varied, but almost all of them are congenital and determined by heredity.
How do bees communicate with each other?
Although animals don't have the language like humans, they can send out various signals to communicate. Bees use "dance" as a signal to indicate where the flowers are. Bees can also change the angle of dance and fly up or down to indicate the direction of honey source.