Summary: 4181
THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY 206 (23)
CLIMATE CONTROL, BEE
STYLE
Whatever the weather, no self-respecting
hive lets the temperature drop inside; the
future of the next generation depends on it.
If the hive's temperature falls a few degrees
below 35°C, the incubating young's
development is seriously threatened. Marco
Kleinhenz explains that much of the hive's
heat derives from general hive-keeping
activity, but workers also help raise the
temperature by congregating at the brood
and vibrating their thoracic muscles to
warm the incubating young. But how each
individual worker contributes to the heating
sum wasn't clear. Brigitte Bujok had
noticed that some of the workers appear to
position themselves over an incubating

Source: Altimiras, Jordi - Department of Biology, Linköpings Universitet

Collections: Environmental Sciences and Ecology