The scientists ripped QR codes in thousands of bees to learn how to fly

We say that hard workers are “busy as bees”, but in a recent study, honey bees seemed more like employees in an office building.

Entomologists and engineers in the QR codes included on the back of tens of thousands of honey bees in rural areas of Pennsylvania and New York. The unprecedented application of this technology, as detailed in a paper Published in November in the newspaper Hardganxit will help scientists and beekeepers study until the insects travel to collect food. Fortunately, the experiment has already shed new light on this mysterious behavior of this Crucial.

Previous studies suggest that honey bees can travel up to 6.2 kilometers (10 miles) from their hives, but entomologists hypothesize that this is rarely the case. “The goal is to understand if that estimate of 10 kilometers is biologically accurate. Can we determine exactly how far honey bees travel from their hives?” Margarita López-Uribe, an ENOMICO at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) and Co-author of the study, said in a university, said in Italy declaration.

QR codes, called official tags, essentially work like badges in an office building. The team has developed an automatic quarter system with a sensor in the busy entrance to record every time someone waits or leaves, allowing them to follow their individual poor programmers. The sensor records the identity of the individual bee, date, time, temperature, and if the bee enters or exits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smst1s0ozfg

The work in Traditional Entomology is usually less hands, but this approach is not prevented from bee abe behavior.

“This technology is the opportunity for the biologist to study the systems in ways that were not before, especially in relation to the organic,” said López-Uribe. The organic piping includes, among other things, maintaining a sufficient space from industrial regions to prevent bees from collecting polchen in clean areas. However, from the common bees because of the common distances remain elusive, the Department of Agriculture of the Agriculture Concession of Agriculture It can be improcated in this safe way in this sense.

“In normal biology, we usually see with our eyes, but the number of observations we can make as men will never scale what a mesh can do” In total, the team cut more than 32,000 bees in six apiaries With QR Codes smaller than human pinky nails that do not damage their movement.

“We removed the young so that we could track their age more accurately, especially when they start to fly and when they stop:” said Robyn Sinwood of the Penn Study, who also responded to the study. Smaller individuals are easier to handle because they don’t stand still.

So what are you?

The researchers observed that the majority of trips from the usual fu between an exit of the climate of the girls or a more rapid check and a certain enter were always less than 20 minutes. However, 34% of the marked bees approached outside the hive for more than two hours.

The wider absence could be due to the excursion for the excursion more. Some travel more, for example, periods of time with fewer flowers, during which the bee probably had to travel further to collect its cause. However, the scientists also admitted that the data could have been thrown away by the bees that simply never returned or entered the breeding of the QR code from the sensor.

Also: “We also found that bees grew much deeper in their lives than they originally thought,” Underwood said. Entomologists previously suggested that honey bees lived about 28 days, he explained. However, “we are taking you foraging d years six weeks, and they do not already have two weeks, so you live much longer than we think.”

When they start faring, they are fed the same information as the hive Hitching on the sources of food to each other through the so-called “Waggle”. Now, the team is working with researchers from the virginta technology to align its time data in order to realize in truth how the habitation is carried out.

Maybe the next step will clear the tiny airtags on his back.