{"id":11917,"date":"2012-06-30T08:00:40","date_gmt":"2012-06-30T15:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=11917"},"modified":"2015-11-24T12:52:02","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T20:52:02","slug":"how-honey-bees-keep-their-hives-warm-given-that-they-are-cold-blooded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2012\/06\/how-honey-bees-keep-their-hives-warm-given-that-they-are-cold-blooded\/","title":{"rendered":"How Honey Bees Keep Their Hives Warm Given That They are Cold Blooded"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Today I found out<\/a> how Honey bees keep their hives warm even though they are cold blooded.<\/p>\n

Up until only a few years ago, it was thought by many scientists that Honey bee hives were kept warm by pupae in the brood and that the bees would often congregate there to warm themselves up from the pupae.\u00a0 Recently, this was found not to be the case when a new Honey bee job was discovered, that of “heater bees.”\u00a0 Bees of almost all ages can perform this function by either vibrating their abdomens or they can also decouple their wings from their muscles, allowing them to vigorously use these muscles without actually moving their wings.\u00a0 This can heat their bodies up to about 111\u00b0 Fahrenheit (44\u00b0 C), which is about 16\u00b0 F (9\u00b0 C) hotter than their normal body temperature.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Another new discovery that went with this was why queen bees leave certain cells in the brood empty.\u00a0 It was previously thought this was an undesirable quality of a queen, so queens that left less empty cells were sought out.\u00a0 In fact, these empty cells are essential to a healthy hive. \u00a0Before the discovery of heater bees using infrared technology, it was thought the bees that crawled in these empty cells were cleaning them out.\u00a0 What’s actually happening is that the heater bees will crawl inside these cells to keep the surrounding cells at the proper temperature, able to warm a maximum of about 70 or so cells per heater bee.<\/p>\n

The heater bees can also directly regulate temperature in individual cells by standing over and pressing their thorax against a cell, something which scientists used to think was just the bees resting.\u00a0 In reality, they are working their wing muscles extremely hard to heat up the cell with their heightened body temperature.\u00a0 Why they do this has to do with job distribution.<\/p>\n

Normally, Honey bee jobs are primarily “assigned” based on their age (see 10 Amazzzzing Honey Bee Facts<\/a> for more on this).\u00a0 However, if the hive needs more bees that are naturally inclined towards house keeping jobs or foraging, the heater bees can adjust the temperature of certain cells to accommodate this.\u00a0 Raising the temperature of a cell to 95\u00b0 F (35\u00b0 C) rather than the normal cell temperature of about 93\u00b0 F (34\u00b0 C) will produce bees that are more inclined to prefer foraging jobs, over housekeeping ones, and vice-versa; so they’ll be more reluctant or more eager to change jobs than other bees their age, depending on their former cell temperature.\u00a0 This helps make sure that the needs of the colony can always be met given the current state of the hive and environment.<\/p>\n

Besides performing the task of heating the brood cells, heater bees also help regulate the overall temperature of the hive.\u00a0 This is essential as Honey bees are cold blooded and once their body temperature drops below about 95\u00b0 F (35\u00b0 C), they lose the ability to fly, which is why once the outside temperature drops below around 50\u00b0 F (10\u00b0 C), you’ll no longer see Honey bees flying around as they’re no longer capable of keeping their body temperature high enough for flight.\u00a0 If the temperature drops low enough, they lose the ability to move at all.<\/p>\n

During winter, the bees all clump together towards the middle of the hive, surrounding the queen.\u00a0 At this time, they allow the temperature of the hive to drop to around 81\u00b0 F (27\u00b0 C) on the inside of the cluster to conserve energy. Bees on the outer parts of the cluster, which will usually be around 48\u00b0 F (9\u00b0 C), then occasionally rotate with the bees on the more crowded inner parts, so that all the bees can keep warm enough to survive. Once the queen starts laying again, the temperature of the inner part of the hive will be raised back up to about 93\u00b0 F (34\u00b0 C).<\/p>\n

In order to support the heater bees at their job, other bees are given the job of occasionally bringing food to them as the heater bee’s energy starts to run low from their constant, vigorous use of their wing muscles or “vibrating” to generate heat.<\/p>\n

If you liked this article and the Bonus<\/span> Bee Facts below, you might also like:<\/p>\n