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Bees Communicate With Electric Fields
sciencehabit writes "The electric fields that build up on honey bees as they fly, flutter their wings, or rub body parts together may allow the insects to talk to each other, a new study suggests. Tests show that the electric fields, which can be quite strong, deflect the bees' antennae, which, in turn, provide signals to the brain through specialized organs at their bases. Antenna deflections induced by an electrically charged honey bee wing are about 10 times the size of those that would be caused by airflow from the wing fluttering at the same distance—a sign that electrical fields could be an important signal."
If that is true, I guess the mother nature is far more advanced than I could even imagine. Sonar, ok, infrared sensors, ok, antibiotics, ok, aero/hydro dynamics, ok, but electric field communication, wtf? I thought this domain solely belonged to human race.
So, this may suggest that our ever increasing use of EM may be responsible for colony collapse disorders.
I wonder if this could help explain Colony Collapse Disorder?
I wonder if the electric fields have anything interesting to say?
I wonder if this can be linked in any way to the dramatic drop in honeybee populations? Does the population drop-off begin near the implementation of any new wireless technology? Correlation may not lead to causation, but it has been known to lead to wild speculation.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I don't see why science has such difficulty accepting that the noises birds make are a language, that the interractions of bees are communication, that elephants communicate over vast distances using noises too low a frequency for the human ear to detect or that whales can and do communicate over vast distances.
What? It isn't real if we can't prove it? That's just plain silly.
so do the deaf.
The more you know...
Bzzzzt.
It might be a good idea to use a consistent vocabulary to describe uncertainty in the title and the summary.
Upon reading the summary, I discover the much less amazing story that bees may communicate with other bees using electrical fields. Call me when we discover the sentient electrical fields.
I rubbed a bee on my head and stuck it to a cat once.
It occurred to me initially, that if the effect is only really noticeable after flight then the only information that they could usefully communicate by this method would be how recently they had completed a flight. It then occurred to me that bees perform a waggle dance which is believed to instruct other bees in the hive where to find food sources. The electrostatic effect on the antenna would be most effective at this time, and also seems to solve one of my issues with the waggle dance theory, which is that it seems most effective as a visual form of communication when viewed from above, which of course the bees do not do.The electrostatic explanation would work, as the dance could manipulate the antennea in the manner of an operator inputting directions using a joystick.
In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...
To think all those years people screaming about electromagnetic radiations from all types of things and trying to avoid it by using tin foil hats might of actually be sensitive to the same things bees are. Go figure. Keep them coming science!
The research only shows that bees can sense the electric fields of other bees. We don't even know whether bees are able to control their own electric fields, claiming that they communicate with each other that way is a bit of a stretch.
"Our bees will blot out the sun!"
"Then we shall alternate in the shade."
Colony collapse has ALREADY been explained by pesticides, specifically a pesticide made by Bayer AG.
Really? That's interesting.
I was under the impression that it was most likely caused by the relaxation of import restrictions on bees into the US from areas which had significant bee diseases and parasites which were not (yet) present in the US. From what I hear these occurred shortly (like a couple years) before the "collapse" phenomenon was noticed.
I'll have to see if I can find the claims and research reports you refer to. (Citations from you would be nice.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Don't bother me. I'm Bz.
http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/38233
"The Italian government banned the use of several neonicotinoid pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees. The Ministero del Lavoro della Salute e delle Politiche Sociali issued an immediate suspension of the seed treatment products clothianidin, imidacloprid, fipronil and thiamethoxam used in rapeseed oil, sunflowers and sweetcorn. The Italian government will start a monitoring program to further investigate the reasons of recent bee deaths."
Where the ban has been in place, Bee collony collapses are dramatically reduced. So no, it's the bug killer that kills the bugs. Who'd have thunk it!
If the bees are communicating via electrical signals that means it can be intercepted and understood in the long run. So google will be mining the bees conversations and injecting ads into it for netflix and cheap canadian meds. They are doomed!
So bees essentially have a method of short range physic communication.
Ima fill this under "damn awesome."
The synopsis speaks that the electrical field MAY allow communications. But the title make it definitive.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I looked for something from a respected news source, Forbes has no reason to lie about this.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markgibbs/2012/04/26/bayer-pesticide-profits-or-bees/
Damn should have read it first. Just a petition, but shows that it is in the forefront of peoples minds.
Here is the pesticide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid
Bees are mentioned at the end.
I guess that's how they make their Foursquare check-ins and Facebook status updates? colonydrone223311: suckin' some nectar (22122 likes) colonydrone243354: stung a human.. lost my needle, monday's suck pesticide.. lol
Damn should have read it first.
Damn, yes you should have.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
So THIS must be where that buzzing sound is coming from...
In Soviet Russia, dot slashes YOU!
Bee do not communicate with electric fields.
They communicate with other bees.
The next step in this argument is to claim that smart meters or cell phones interfere with this mechanism and therefore are the cause of reductions in bee populations.
Or some other horse shit like that.
The likelihood of anyone noticing you quoted something in the article is on the order of plucking a single hair from a mosquito's back wearing boxing gloves.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Experiements Suggest That Bees Communicate With Electric Fields
FTFY...
I find I'm much smarter and much more aware of things than nearly everybody around me these days
holey crap, we have a bona fide indigo child posting to slashdot!
We still find hidden details in his complex designs after hundreds of years of study. There's a lot to learn from the Master Engineer!
I wonder if this could also explain how they fly.
Electrostatic lift will lift light objects, too.
Analog or Digital?
Bee A: "101010111111111111100000110101111..."
Bee B: "Kiss your mother with that mouth!?"
with a bee translator, you could tell them "Give me all your honey" or "Pollinate my flowers" or "Go sting my neighbor"