8/8/2023 0 Comments Bumbled bees“This has important implications for bumble bees and climate change. “Getting warmer from carrying pollen could put bumble bees in the range of those stressful, critically hot temperatures,” says Malia Naumchik, a former applied ecology minor undergraduate and lead author of the study. Since pollen-laden bumble bees are hotter than unladen ones, this could mean that carrying a full load of pollen on a hot day puts bees at greater risk of reaching the potentially lethal end of their temperature tolerance. However, not much is known about how they can tolerate heat. Among bees, bumble bees are exceptionally cold tolerant and will shiver to warm up during cold days. Like ants and other ectotherms, the body temperature of a bumble bee is mostly determined by the environment. Specifically, the researchers found that bee body temperatures rose 0.07☌ for every milligram of pollen that they carried, with fully laden bees being 2☌ warmer than unladen bees. This new study found that – after accounting for environmental temperature and body size – the body temperature of bumble bees carrying pollen was significantly hotter than the temperature of bees that were empty-legged. And while bees may seem to move from flower to flower with ease, these pollen packets can weigh up to a third of their body weight. These yellow bumps are solid packets of pollen that have been carefully collected during the bees’ foraging trip for transport back to their nests. Spend a bit of time at a nearby flower patch and you will spot a fuzzy bumble bee with yellow bumps on her back legs. This new understanding of active bumble bee body temperatures raises questions about how these species will be impacted by a warmer world due to climate change. Michelle Jewell new study from North Carolina State University finds carrying pollen is a workout that significantly increases the body temperature of bumble bees.
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