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| Bee Pollinate Source Wikimedia Commons Public Domain |
Bees are closely related to wasps and ants, bees are known for their role in pollinating flowers, plus bees are also well known for producing delicious types of honey and beeswax both highly nutritious.
There are nearly 20,000 known species of bees from seven to nine families recognized, although many are described and the actual number is probably higher. Found on all continents except Antarctica, in every habitat on the planet that contains insect pollination and flowering plants. Bees belong to the monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, currently classified by taxonomic name, unsorted unsorted within Anthophila.
Bees are adapted for feeding on nectar and pollen, the former primarily as an energy source and the second as a source of protein and other nutrients. Most bees use pollen as food for larvae.
Bees have a long proboscis (a complex "tongue in cylindrical and elongated") that allows them to obtain nectar from flowers. The antennae of the bees in most of the world is composed of 13 segments in males and 12 females, as is typical of this superfamily. Bees have two pairs of wings, the posterior pair is the smaller of the two pairs of wings, some bee species are very few indeed have relatively short wings that make flight difficult or impossible, or even some species of bees have wings so small that they seem to have no wings.
The bee Trigona is a really small kind, the worker bees of this species have no sting, measuring approximately 2.1 mm or approximately (5 / 6 ") long. By contrast, the largest bee species known to date is Call Bee Megachile Pluto. The bee Megachile Pluto, is a leaf-cutting bee, females of this species can reach a length of 39mm or approximately (1.5 "). The members of the family Halictidae, are the most common type of bees in the northern hemisphere Despite being small, and often confused with wasps or bees still fly but despite appearances.
The best known is the European Honey Bee Bee. As its name implies, produces honey, as well as some other types or species of bees. This species, the honey-bee is the most cultivated class of beekeepers who are in charge of cultivation and care. Beekeeping is a very consuming profession that requires specific expertise, for adequate production honey bee which in turn depends heavily on bees which in turn developed a honey rich or poor quality and low in nutrients as the crop quantity and quality of flowers available. Thus, and so beekeepers selected flower crops in order to obtain the desired groups, for example, to produce honey honey bee Romero will be needed and therefore get two crops of flowers honey Romero. The same happens with honey chamomile, honey, basil, among others.
Do not confuse the honey industry, artificial or plant without the intervention of bees in which case they are honey with other organoleptic characteristics and nutritional well being preferred honey bees for their medicinal properties, antibiotic, remineralizing, and multi-nutrient aromatic compounds, hormones, etc..
Bees are the favorite food: Various insects such as dragonfly, amphibians like frogs, and birds like bee-eater bird, among other predators.
Bees and their role in Pollination
Bees play an important role in pollinating flowering plants, and are the major type of pollinators in ecosystems that contain flowering plants. Bees tend to focus on gathering nectar or pollen, the collection is given in terms of demand, especially in social species. Collecting the nectar of bees can do the pollination, but bees that are deliberately gathering pollen are more efficient pollinators.
It is estimated that one third of human food supply depends on insect pollination, most of which is carried out by bees, especially honeybees European domestic. The contract pollination has overtaken the role of honey production by beekeepers in many countries. Monoculture and the massive decline of many species of bees (both wild and domestic) have caused more and more that the beekeepers are migratory honeybees and pollinators can be mobilized in natural movable panels and / or artificial in order to meet demand pollinating bees in various parts of the world, especially in cultures of edible flowers or plants with edible fruits stationary areas where the absence of migratory pollinating bees at certain times of year it becomes increasingly difficult to pollinate flowers and therefore there is a decrease of food plants or fruits.
To avoid the scarcity of certain foods, lack of bees pollinating many farmers rely on beekeepers pollinating bees to sustain their production margins, and thus meet the large and growing demand for food, from flowering plants that meet cycle need pollinating bees. Most bees have hairy bodies slightly with a small electrostatic charge that helps in the adhesion of pollen on their bodies, making the cycle of pollination of flowers of plants. The female bees periodically stop feeding and grooming to pack the pollen into the scopa. Bees also have hair on their legs on the ventral, abdomen and other parts of their bodies.
Carrion Bees Bees opportunistic
Many bees are opportunistic, and come together to get the pollen from a variety of plants, while other bees are exclusive or selective, ie they collect pollen from only one or a few types of plants. A small number of plants produce nutritious floral oils rather than pollen, which are collected and used by bees oligolécticas or selective. A small subgroup of stingless bees, called "vulture bees" is specialized to feed on carrion, and these are the only bees that do not use plant products as food. The pollen and nectar are usually combined together to form a "provision mass", which is often thick, but can be firm, these bodies have different shapes (typically spheroid), and are stored in a small camera or cell honeycomb or hive of bees, with the egg deposited on the ground. The cell is typically closed after the egg is laid, and the adult and larva never interact directly (a system called "mass provisioning").
Adaptive processes of Bees with the passing of the centuries
In New Zealand they found that the three genera of native bees have been developed or evolved themselves in their adjustment process to open the flower buds of native mistletoe Peraxilla tetrapetala. Outbreaks can not be opened, but if they are visited by birds as the Tui and Bell Bird touching the top of the yolk matures. This action publishes a mechanism that causes the petals suddenly spring open, giving access to nectar and pollen. Which rightly suggests that insects also have marked processes of adaptation and / or evolution as in this case where we clearly see that an instinct either inherited or acquired survival process after millions of years, bees have been and taken advantage of the birds that visit the plants, a feat highly plausible for an animal that supposedly does not think for himself and acts on his instincts, but the concern arises from knowing how to change these basic survival instincts making them more adaptive beings and evolved in some way.
However, by observing the native bees in the province of Canterbury in the South Island, scientists were surprised to see the bees sting the top of the shoots, and then pushing with the legs, and occasionally popping open the flower buds for the bees harvest nectar and pollen to feed and pollinate the flowers of the mistletoe plant at the same time. Naturalists have found this evolutionary process and instinctive adaptatvio not only as a feat for an insect so small but because of the importance of this process in the conservation of this species of bees but also for the conservation of the mistletoe plant, which is declining in New Zealand. Nowhere in the world have demonstrated the ability to get bees to pollen and nectar from flowers using the help of a bird as if it happens to bees in New Zealand business and patiently adapted for this process to finish eating and the pollination process.
However not all is rosy in their way as pollinating bees visiting flowers of these plants in this case, the Mistletoe, are often used because many of them deadly to insects such as assassin bugs and crab spiders that hide in flowers to capture unwary bees. Other bees along the way but often become very rarely in food of these birds or also used as carriers for their food, this being a symbiotic relationship, but sometimes the bees may use this type of animal transport disoriented or lost in the forest or valley, that if we analyze it from the standpoint of pollinating bees size versus size of forest or valley, is really a huge jungle comparable to the vastness of the planet earth for us.
Insecticides, its relationship with the Bees and the Environment
While it is true that the insecticides used in flowering plants often kill and control many pests harmful to crops and plants such as mistletoe, and avoid overpopulation of unwanted species, these insecticides also cruelly kill many bees, which not only population affects the number of bees in the hive and other insect species but also that these insecticides are often a highly negative factor for the reproductive capacity of various species of fauna and flora of the animal world.
A honeypot queen may lay 2,000 eggs per day during spring buildup, but also must put 1000 to 1500 eggs per day during the feeding season, mostly to replace daily casualties, the majority of workers who are dying of old age . Between solitary and social bees primitive, however, the reproduction of life is the lowest of all insects, because it is common for females of these species produce less than 25 offspring in the reproductive cycle of life.
The amount bee population depends not only on individual part to the efficiency of the bees, but also the people themselves. Thus, while bumblebees have been found to be about ten times more efficient pollinators of cucurbits, the total efficiency of a colony of bees is much greater due to higher number, in this case the famous saying (the union force) is fully applicable and largely true. Also during the first flowers of spring in the garden or food crops or food but not flowers, bumblebee populations are limited to only a few queens, and therefore are not significant pollinators of early fruit, specifically pollination flowers of fruit trees.
Consequences for the population mass of bees insceticide
The inappropriate use of these insecticides and their use without proper scientific evidence to substantiate their side effects short, medium and long term, have brought enormous disadvantages for pollinating bees, fauna and flora in general, because these insecticides attack various vital systems of insects, which causes mutations in DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), the effects of these mutations and mutations in itself, affect not only the bees but also to other species and the plants themselves and the Mistletoe as in this case. The consequences of these mutations are short, medium and long term, effects such as fruits dysmorphic (distorted form), oversized, nuts, increases in the composition of nutrients and substances from plants, unnatural colors or tones and a endless variety of side effects, although not all bad in fact there are many positive factors of insecticides on plants and crops, despite its side effects but not many the problem is that although it is slow can be very serious.
Decrease of pollinating bees
In 2007 the populations of European honey bees pollinate experienced significant and substantial decreases in mass.
After many years of research by the panic caused the decline in bee population mass and subsequently affecting the ecological and symbiotic fauna and flora. Apparently the result of these numerous studies indicate that a fungus and a virus acting in combination have caused the decline of the mass population in the U.S., depues of economic losses caused by these pathogens that increasing in number and therefore out of control, went from being just a common virus and fungi to become a real economic threat to the beekeeping industry not only but also for food, pharmaceutical and general all industries that depend on inputs directly or indirectly related to bee pollination.
In 2009, several reports of the department of agriculture of the United States and other scientific bodies, private and public, indicated that 1 / 3 of the population mass of bees survived the winter, normally in previous years this figure was lower, apparently cause was not the cold itself, but the proliferation of these fungi and viral pathogens in such conditions that reduce the service life of bees, thus putting at risk as we said above the survival of many species that depend on bee pollination activity honey bee but not pollinating honey bee flowers.
The problem is generally believed "Colony Collapse Disorder", which many of the losses outside the U.S. sometimes attributed to other causes. The pesticides used for seed treatment, such as clothianidin and imidacloprid, were also considered prime suspects. Other species of bees such as mason bees are increasingly cultured and used to meet the need for agricultural pollination, thus causing a strong ecological imbalance that favors the proliferation of some species and detrimental to others, as is the case of fungi and viruses in the first case and the below polnizadoras in the second.
Scientists have discovered that these insecticides are not as specific, while some undesirable insects kill natural enemies of bees, they also kill other insects, favoring the growth of other species that used to be prey of these insects, other scientists believe and argue that these pesticides can kill some species of pests but they can also strengthen other and even the same species of insect pests by making them resistant to these chemicals and somehow stronger or resistant to its own enemies, in fact some scholars believe topic that many of these insects can become immune to pesticides from the misuse of them. Insects as well as the immune systems of a human being when injected virus vaccines weakened by example instead of dying what the organism is becoming resistant to the virus, well in nature especially in the case of these pests is the same.
Native pollinators, including bumblebees and solitary bees, which often survive in refuge in wild areas away from agricultural spraying, but can still be poisoned in massive spray programs for mosquitoes, moths, insects or other pests. Although the use of pesticides is still a concern, is the main problem for the populations of wild pollinators such as bees, making it the loss of habitat rich in flowers of many of them from food abundant fruit of flowering plants. Along the northern hemisphere, the last 70 years or so have seen an intensification of agricultural systems, which has decreased the abundance and diversity of wildflowers.
Some scholars and environmental scientists say that the 1980 Act in the UK, to the detriment or damage to many species of pests but also against the vital and necessary direct architects bees the very important and vital natural pollination cycle of many species floral across the globe.
Other highlights in the Evolution and Adaptation of Bees
Bees, like ants, are a specialized form of wasp. The ancestors of bees were wasps Crabronidae family, and therefore predators of other insects. The change of insect prey to pollen may be the result of consumption of prey insects that were flower visitors and were partially covered with pollen as they feed the wasp larvae. This same trend is also setting Vespa wasps, where the group known as "pollen wasps" also evolved from predatory ancestors.
Until recently, the oldest fossil bee compression had been the "prisca Cretotrigona" fossil found in a piece of amber found well preserved in New Jersey, said bee sting fossil belonging to the Cretaceous. Another newly found fossil bee, genus Melittosphex is considered "an extinct lineage type of pollen-bees, bees sister Apoideas modern" and dates from the early Cretaceous (about 100 million years ago). Differentiating features of their morphology (apomorphies) puts this clearly in fossil bees, but keeping unchanged and two ancestral traits ("plesiomorphies") of the legs (two spurs in the mid tibia and basitarsus slender rear ), indicative of his state of transition and further development.
The process of pollination in the old (several million years ago) was carried out by other pollinating insects such as beetles, so that the syndrome of insect pollination was well established, obviously this was before the bees made their appearance by first time.
The novelty is that bees are specialized as pollination, both physically and mentally (instinctively speaking), and therefore, the bees tend to be more efficient in the task of pollination, which otos insects such as beetles, flies, butterflies , wasps and other species of pollinating insects. The appearance of such floral specialists is believed to have driven the adaptive radiation of angiosperms, and in turn this has also helped itself widely successful adaptation and evolutionary process of the same bees.
Among the groups who live bees, are that of (young language) belonging to the family of bees Colletidae, which has been considered by the scientific community as the most primitive family of bees, and in turn sister taxon of all other bees . In the twenty-first century, however, some researchers have argued that the basal group Dasypodaidae is short, similar to the wasp colletids mouth parts, which scientists say is usually the result of convergent evolution, rather than being indicative a plesiomorphic condition. This issue remains under discussion, and the phylogenetic relationships among families of bees, are little known in detail today, despite the extensive studies and investigations by the naturalist and cietífica community.
The failure to advance on the phylogenetic origins of the bees is due largely to the lack of fossil successive and decisive contributions of the various prehistoric ages to establish with precision the origin and evolution of species so they can more accurately classify species and in this specific case the bees.
The eusocial bees or semisocial
Bees may be solitary or may live in different types of communities. The most advanced of these communities are eusocial colonies, the main characteristic of such communities is that they have no stinger, also belong to this type of colonies some bees, some bees and stingless bees of course. Companies in several different types, are believed to have evolved separately many times within the bees.
In some species, groups of bees and cohabiting females may be sisters, there is usually a division of labor within the group of the hive.
Here are some bees that are considered semisocial
If additional division of labor within the hive group consists of a mother and her daughters bees, then the group is called eusocial. The mother is considered the "queen" and the daughters are "workers." These castes may be purely behavioral alternatives, in which case the system is considered "primitively eusocial" (similar to the role of many wasps), and if the castes are morphologically discrete, then the system is "highly eusocial".
There are many more species of primitively eusocial bees than highly eusocial bees, according to several studies that have been made to the respective owner. The biology of most of these species is almost completely unknown. The vast majority belong to the family Halictidae, or "sweat bees." The colonies are generally small, with a dozen or so of worker bees on average. The only physical difference between queens and workers is average size. Most species have a seasonal cycle in the colony, even in the tropics, and only bees mated females (future queens, or "gynes") in a kind of hibernation called: (diapause).
Some species of bees have long breeding seasons or periods of very active and therefore reach these settlements and / or bee hives several hundred thousand. The orchid bees include a number of primitively eusocial species with similar biologies. Allodapine Some species of bees (relatives of carpenter bees) also have primitively eusocial colonies, with unusual levels of interaction between adult bees and developing young. This is a progressive move for procurement within the hive of bees, at the same time and as a complement of this intricate cycle or internal process of provisioning or autoabestecimiento by bees in the hive, it is also providing food gradually, as all these processes are developed, this type of behavior is also observed among bumblebees and even among other insects.
Highly eusocial bees live in colonies. Each colony has one queen, many workers and, in certain stages of the colony. It is clear that when humans provide the nest, this is called a hive. A hive of bees and even a natural honeycomb built by bees, may have several thousand of them exceeding 40,000 in the high peaks in the spring where they reach the largest population, yet their numbers usually average over the year is lower.
The BumbleBees and the Bees
Bumblebees (Bombus terrestris, B. pratorum, Et al.) Eusocial insects are a way quite similar to the eusocial Vespidae such as hornets. The queen begins her own nest (unlike queens of honey bees and stingless bees which start nests via swarms of bees in the company of a very large work force.) Bumble bee colonies typically have from 50 to 200 bees at peak population, which occurs in mid to late summer.
The Bumble bees nests are often used by former colonies, so the architecture will depend largely on the size of the hive or nest left by their predecessors, though the bees tend to modify the internal arquitura available to him, according to their needs, is clear that modifications or adjustments inside the new nest but usually are limited interference of intruders in the nest tend to generate large changes in the same or even outside it.
Bumblebees are one of the most important wild pollinators, but decreased significantly in recent decades. In the UK, two species have become extinct nationally over the past 75 years, while others have been released in the UK in a sort of Action Plan on biodiversity priority species in the recognition of the need conservation measures.
In 2006 a new charity, of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, was established to coordinate efforts to conserve the remaining populations through guidance, information and education of the general population, thus contributing to the proliferation of the species.
Stingless bees
The stingless bees are very diverse in their behavior, but all are eusocial. Have accentuated the massive practice of provisioning, complex nest architecture, and perennial colonies.
HONEY BEE
Western European honey bee
The real honey bees (genus Apis). They certainly have the most complex social behavior among bees. The European honeybee (or Western) better known as the honey bee or Apis mellifera, is the best known bee species and one of the most popular among all insects.
Africanized honey bee
Africanized bees, also called killer bees are a hybrid strain of Apis mellifera derived from experiments Estevam Warwick Kerr, to cross honey bee European bees with Africanized bees, and for this reason are called Africanized bees since there is already a kind of African bees in conmbinación which comes with the honey bee Africanized bee whose aggressiveness is well known, and even the filmmakers have made several films with Africanized bees bse in these stories combined with real and part fiction part to give their films more intensity and prominence to these insects. Several queen bees escaped from the laboratory Estevam Warwick Kerr, South America and have spread throughout the Americas, and it is believed that there arose the unconventional natural crossroads between the European honey bee, African and giving rise to and feared the new kind of highly defensive Africanized bees aggressive.
Solitary bees and honeybees
Most other bees, including species of bees known as the Eastern carpenter bee (Xylocopa virginica), bee alfalfa leaf cutter (Megachile rotundata), orchard mason bee (Osmia lignaria) and the bee side horn (cornifrons Osmia), are solitary, in the sense that each bee female is fertile, and usually lives in a nest that she built. No worker bee species therefore do not build hives of bees or have a hierarchical society, organized as it exists in other species of social bees. solitary bees do not usually produce honey and beeswax. They are also immune to common mites and varroa mite, a species that attacks the bees many times since its larval stage, producing many ailments of bees including deformations of the wings of the same. However all is not rosy for these common solitary bees and they have their own unique parasites, pests and disease.
Solitary bees are important pollinators, and pollen is picked for provisioning the nest as food for their young. Often pollen mixed with nectar to form a paste-like consistency highly nutritious. Some solitary bees are selective and sorting in the types of pollen transport and organized as it were, the structures in their bodies used for the transport of certain types of pollen, depending on your needs, tastes and customs. Increasingly used today are common solitary bees or commercial purposes, as well as man, the bee industry and even other fruit industries that require pollination to reproduce, specifically built: Hives or artificial honeycombs to attract and accommodate these many common or solitary bees and in return they get from the pollination of the flowers of plants for various purposes including also the production of flowers for nectar and the honey bee, so you can make huge amounts of honey for later marketing and consumption worldwide
Solitary bees often oligoelécticas ie gather pollen from one or a few species or genera of plants in contrast to bees and bumble bees often collect pollen from different species or genera of plants.
Bees are not known to be specialists in the gathering of nectar from a single plant species or genus specific, many bees will visit multiple plants oligoléctic nectar, but there is no specific bee species to visit a single flower species or genus of a specific plant nectar collection.
Pollinating bees specialists also include bee species that gather floral oils instead of pollen, for example in the case of bees collecting of orchids, is the only case where the male bees collect orchids aromatics, and are also the only case where the bees are effective pollinators of the male gender.
In a very few cases fortunately. A single species of bee can pollinate successfully flower of a plant species or genus specific, so some species or genera of plants are in danger of extinction due largely to their specific pollinating bees are dying, as in the For some species of orchids that can only be successfully pollinated only by certain male bees of certain species of bees.
There are, however, a pronounced tendency for bees to sit oligoléctic associating with each other, because of the variety of new species of flowering plants cross product of many species of flowering plants successfully made by man, providing thousands of bees collection alternatives and partnership among themselves for a variety of nectar and pollen for their own consumption and in turn the pollination of other species. For example at present there are about 40 oligoleges associated with creosote bush in the desert southwest U.S., and a similar pattern is seen in sunflowers, asters, mesquite, and other varieties of flowering plants.
Solitary bees make their nests in hollow reeds or twigs, holes in wood, or more commonly, in tunnels in the ground. The female bee typically creates a compartment a "cell" hexagonal with an egg and some supplies for the future resulting larva, then seals the chamber or cell contained within the hive or beehive as its infrastructure.
A nest may consist of numerous cells, which in turn contain the precious eggs, usually egg cells which are closer to the entrance of the hive or comb often become future in male bees, while the eggs are closer to the center or inside of the hive or nest, bees tend to become female, once the camera or cell sealed honeycomb or hive with eggs that later become larva and its corresponding supply: A mixture of honey, royal jelly and pollen produced by bees cleverly as treating the species, although it seems cruel the young are abandoned, however genetic survival instinct and the genetic code passed down over millions of years, natural and instinctively tell them the steps .
Males usually come out first and are ready to mate when females emerge.
Or hives provide artificial nest boxes for solitary bees is becoming a popular practice implemented by gardeners in order to achieve the best results with their crops and facilitate the process of pollination (play), work, or work skills developed by the bees. Note that the bees never sting or without attack a person or animal unless it is disturbing the, invading their space, emitting low frequency sounds deafening to bees, or other similar threats. Bee stings are a natural defense tool designed and evolved over millions of years but at no time is a weapon or attack tool voluntary.
While solitary bees, solitary nest each separately, some species are more gregarious and prefer to nest near others of the same species, giving the appearance to the casual observer that are social but are actually clusters of nests Nearby lonely, who are different from the colony of a honeycomb which is a single nest built by several bees. In conclusion, large groups of solitary bee nests are called clusters, and should not be confused with the nest of a beehive that is a multifamily home as it were.
In some species of bees, other female bees share a common nest, but each is made and suited to the arrangements of his cell, camera or cell independently. This type of group is called "communal" and it is not uncommon in nature is actually fairly common or common solitary bees which are not quite lonely but neither are they entirely social, we can see here a kind of bee semisocial . The main advantage of these communal groups of solitary bees, it seems that the same nest entrance is easier to defend from predators and parasites when there are several outstanding female bees of the same at all times, as activity monitoring for rotating balanced between them, allowing the organization to such semigrupal bees a greater degree of independence and freedom itself but also greater vulenrabilidad in general, since the greatest strength of the bees in an attack is his number in the swarm making them stronger and less vulnerable.
Kleptoparasitism Bees
Cleptoparasitic bees, commonly called "cuckoo bees" because their behavior is similar to cuckoo birds, are distributed in several bee families, though the name is technically applicable ApID Nomadinae subfamily. The females of this species of bees collect pollen on its body and limbs due to lack of (the scopa) or long cylindrical tongue and also build their own nests.
Typically enter the nests of species of bees collecting pollen (bees pollinating) and lay their eggs in the cells, chambers or cells, provided by host bees. When the cuckoo bee larva or klepto-parasitic opens the hatch of his cell, cell or camera, then usually comerce larvae that have not yet left the cell, cell or bee pollination camera host who received even though rarely but can also devour other larvae of bees or klepto-parasitic cuckoo, apparently mistaken for the host lasrvas bee pollinators. Because of this behavior in a way they are cannibals and parasitic bees cuckoo called kleptoparasitism.
In a few cases where the hosts are social species, the cleptoparasite remains in the nest (honeycomb) host and lays many eggs, sometimes even kill the host queen and replace it with one that is: The Bees pollinate the host is killed, eaten and replaced by a new bee Kleptoparasitism now becomes queen of the colony.
Kleptoparasitism many bees are closely related to parasitic bumblebees, and they resemble their hosts in looks and size (ie, the Bombus subgenus Psithyrus, which are parasites that invade bumblebee nests of species in other subgenera of Bombus). This common pattern gave rise to the ecological principle known as "Emery's Rule." Other parasites of bees in different families, as Townsendiella, A nomadine ApID, A species of the genus cleptoparasite Dasypoda Hesperapis, while the other species in the attack itself, almost always belong to the genus of bees halictid.
Nocturnal bees
Four bee families (Andrenidae, Colletidae, Halictidae, and Apidae) contain some species that are crepuscular (these may be the evening or morning type). These bees have greatly enlarged ocelli, which are extremely sensitive to light and darkness, though unable to form images. Many are pollinators of flowers that themselves are crepuscular, Such as evening primroses, and some live in desert environments, where temperatures are extremely hot during the day.
In his 1934 book "des insectes", the French Le vol M. Magnan, wrote: That he and a Mr. Saint-Lague had applied the equations of air resistance to the bees and found that their flight could not be explained by the calculations of physics, but "No wonder that the results of these calculations do not square with reality. " The results of this study have led to a common misconception, that the bees "violate aerodynamic theory, but in fact only confirms that bees are not involved in the physics of flight and your flight is explained by other mechanics, such as those used by the helicopters not the airplanes. Apparently this confusion of the laws of aerodynamics that were used in that study, was responsible for the apparent and inexplicable how the bees with its heavy and chubby body with so little wings as in the case of bumblebees could then fly.
In 1996 Charlie Ellington at Cambridge University, found that the vortices created by many winged insects such as bees, are nonlinear effects which are a vital source of lift, the vortices and non-linear phenomena are notoriously difficult to explain the laws of aerodynamics applied to aircraft, according to law wrongly applied to the flight of some insects such as honeybees and bumblebees, hindering, delaying and obstructing the investigation of the laws of aerodynamics of insects to which they should apply theories or laws special aerodynamic like helicopters.
In 2005 Michael Dickinson and his Caltech colleagues studied honey bee flight with the help of high speed photography, and a giant robot as a bee and bee wings level. Their analysis revealed sufficient scientific data clearly showed as did the bees to fly, in this study could be seen and know that bees flap their wings making a sort of arc to a surprising speed of 230 times per second, faster even than fruit fly flapping its wings at a rate of 200 times per second which is 80 smaller in size, could also see that the wings of the bees have the ability not only to paddle in an arc from the bottom up and top to bottom and so on but also can tilt and even rotate the position of its wings, a factor that allows them more skillfully maneuver your flight, all these findings were made possible by technology high-definition cameras and high speed filming allowing see in slow motion the detailed Technical Characteristics of the bee flight.
Bees and their relation to human
Bees play an important role in mythology and have been used by political theorists and have been used as a model for human consumption in society. The Journalist Wilson says that the image of the bee in a honeybee community, occurs from ancient to modern times, in Aristotle and Plato, Virgil and Seneca, Erasmus and Shakespeare, Tolstoy, as well as social theorists Bernard Mandeville and Karl Marx.
Despite the painful sting of the honey bee and the stereotype of insects as pests, bees are generally held in high esteem. This is most likely due to their usefulness as pollinators and as producers of honey, their social nature, and its reputation for diligence. Bees are one of the few insects are usually used in advertisements, are used to illustrate the honey and foods made with honey (eg, Honey Nut Cheerios).
In ancient Egypt, the bee was seen as a symbol of the land of Lower Egypt, the pharaoh known as "the sedge and the bee" (the junk representing Upper Egypt).
In North America, wasps and hornets, especially when they are to fly as a pest, wasps and hornets often are misidentified as bees, despite the many differences between them.
While a bee sting in some cases (thankfully few) can be fatal for people with allergies, virtually all species of bees are not aggressive unless disturbed, and many of these species of bees can not sting anyone for lack of sting. Humans are often a greater danger to bees, bees can be affected or even harmed by encounters with toxic chemicals in the environment or chemical pesticides.