the needles on the branch of a spruce tree). Yes, the hairs help keep the bee body warm, but they also do much more. A bee can “feel” with these hairs, and the hairs serve the bee well when it comes to pollination because pollen sticks well to the branched hairs.
Head
The honey bee’s head is flat and somewhat triangular in shape. Here’s where you find the bee’s brain and primary sensory organs (sight, feel, taste, and smell). It’s also where you find important glands that produce royal jelly and some of the various chemical pheromones used for communication. Figure 2-2 compares the heads of a worker, drone, and queen.
Courtesy of Howland Blackiston
FIGURE 2-2: Comparing the heads of worker, drone, and queen bees. Note the worker bee’s extra-long proboscis and the drone’s huge, wraparound eyes.
Royal jelly is a substance secreted from glands in a worker bee’s head and is used as a food to feed brood.
The important parts of the bee’s head are its
Eyes: The head includes two large, compound eyes that are used for general-distance sight, and three small, simple eyes, called ocelli, which are used in the poor light conditions within the hive. Notice the three simple eyes (ocelli) on all three bee types Figure 2-2, while the huge, wraparound, compound eyes of the drone make him easy to identify. The queen’s eyes, are slightly smaller than the worker bee’s and much smaller than the drone’s.
Antennae: The honey bee has two elbowed antennae on the front of its face. Each antenna has thousands of tiny sensors that detect smell (like a nose does). The bee uses this sense of smell to identify flowers, water, the colony, and maybe even you! The antennae also, like the branched hairs mentioned earlier, feel, detect moisture, measure distance when bees fly, and help the bee detect up and down, among other functions.
Mouth parts: The bees’ mandibles (jaws) are used for feeding larvae, collecting pollen, manipulating wax, and carrying things.
Proboscis: Everyone’s familiar with those noisemakers that show up at birthday and New Year’s Eve parties. You know, the ones that unroll when you toot them! The bee’s proboscis is much like those party favors, only without the “toot.” When the bee is at rest, this organ is retracted and not visible. But when the bee is feeding or drinking, it unfolds and two basic parts to form a long tube that the bee uses like a straw.
Thorax
The middle part of the bee is the thorax. It is the segment between the head and the abdomen where the two pairs of wings and six legs are anchored.
Wings: Here’s a trivia question for your next party: How many wings does a honey bee have? The answer is four. Two pairs are attached fore and aft to the bee’s thorax. The wings are hooked together in flight and separate when the bee is at rest.
Legs: The bee’s three pairs of legs are all different. Each leg has multiple segments that make the legs quite flexible. Bees also have taste receptors on the tips of their legs. The bee uses its forward-most legs to clean its antennae. The middle legs help with walking and are used to pack loads of pollen (and sometimes propolis) onto the pollen baskets that are part of the hind legs. Propolis is the sticky, resinous substance that the bees collect from the buds of trees and use to seal up cracks in the hive. Propolis can be harvested and used for a variety of nifty products. (For more information on propolis and what you can do with it, see Chapter 18.) The hind legs (see Figure 2-3) are specialized on the worker bee. They contain special combs and a pollen press, which are used by the worker bee to brush, collect, pack, and carry pollen and propolis back to the hive. Take a moment to closely watch a foraging bee on a flower. You’ll see her hind legs heavily loaded with pollen for the return trip home.
Spiracles: These tiny holes along the sides of a bee’s thorax and abdomen are the means by which a bee breathes. The bee’s trachea (breathing tubes) are attached to these spiracles. Tracheal mites gain access to the trachea through the first hole in the thorax. These mites are a problem for bees; you find out how to deal with tracheal mites in Chapter 13.
Courtesy of Dr. Eric Erickson, Jr.
FIGURE 2-3: In this close-up image of a worker bee’s leg, you can clearly see the hairs that serve as brushes to collect pollen.
Abdomen
The abdomen is the part of the bee’s body that contains its digestive organs, heart, reproductive organs, wax and scent glands (workers only), and, of course, the infamous stinger (workers and queen only).
The Amazing Language of Bees
It is said that only man and primates have a form of communication superior to that of the honey bee. Like you and I, honey bees use five senses throughout their daily lives; however, honey bees have additional communication aids at their disposal. Two of the methods by which they communicate are of particular interest. One is chemical, the other choreographic.
Pheromones
Pheromones are chemical scents that animals produce to trigger behavioral responses from the other members of the same species. Honey bee pheromones provide the “glue” that holds the colony together. The three types of adults in a hive, of which more is mentioned later in this chapter, produce different pheromones at different times to stimulate specific behaviors. The study of pheromones is a topic worthy of an entire book, so here are just a few basic facts about the ways pheromones help bees communicate:
Certain queen pheromones (known as queen substance, discussed at greater length later in this chapter) let the entire colony know that the queen is in residence and stimulate many worker-bee activities.
Outside of the hive, the queen pheromones act as a sex attractant to potential suitors (male drone bees from other colonies). They also help regulate the drone (male bee) population in the hive.
Queen pheromones stimulate many worker-bee activities, such as comb-building, brood-rearing, foraging, and food storage.
The worker bees at the hive’s entrance produce pheromones that help guide foraging bees back to their hive. The Nasonov gland (discussed later in this chapter) at the tip of the worker bee’s abdomen is responsible for this alluring scent.
Worker bees produce alarm pheromones that can trigger sudden and decisive aggression from the colony.
The colony’s brood (developing
