CATCH THE BUZZ - Bees' Internal Clocks can Change

Our next webinar will have a slightly different format than those you’ve seen in the past. Get comfortable because it will be two hours long. The first hour will focus on overwintering bees. We will discuss location (urban, rural), pests and predators, feeding, temperature extremes, as well as much more. This discussion features  Michael Palmer, a commercial beekeeper in northern Vermont, to help us with the northern climates, and Harry Fulton, retired State Apiarist from Mississippi, who will bring the southern perspective. To fill in the bits and pieces, Kim Flottum, editor of Bee Culture Magazine will be joining us. That is the first hour. The second hour will be a panel discussion of sorts on all things beekeeping. We have had numerous requests for just an Q;& A session. With this panel, there is not a question they won't be able to answer.

This Webinar is brought to you courtesy of Brushy Mountain Bee Farm

Overwintering bees and Panel Discussion
Date: Sept 21, 2010
Time: 6:00-8:00PM EST
Space is limited. Registration is free so reserve your Webinar seat now at: For more information and registration Click Here

CATCH THE BUZZ

Bees Change Their Internal Clocks

Honey bees removed from their usual roles in the hive quickly and drastically changed their biological rhythms, according to a study in the Sept. 15 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The changes were evident in both the bees' behavior and in their internal clocks. These findings indicate that social environment has a significant effect on the physiology and behavior of animals. In people, disturbances to the biological clock are known to cause problems for shift workers and new parents and for contributing to mood disorders.

Circadian rhythm, the body's "internal clock," regulates daily functions. A few "clock genes" control many actions, including the time of sleeping, eating and drinking, temperature regulation, and hormone fluctuations. However, exactly how that clock is affected by — and affects — social interactions with other animals is unknown.

Senior author Guy Bloch, PhD, and his colleagues from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, chose to study bees in part because of their complex social environment. One role in bee society is the "nurse": bees that are busy at all times caring for larvae. This continuous activity is different from other bees and animals, whose levels rise and fall throughout the day.

Bloch and his team thought that changing the nurse bees' social environment might alter their activity levels, so they separated them from their larvae. The researchers found that the bees' cellular rhythms and behavior completely changed, matching a more typical circadian cycle.

"Our findings show that circadian rhythms of honey bees are altered by signals from the brood that are transferred by close or direct contact," Bloch said. "This flexibility in the bees' clock is striking, given that humans and most other animals studied cannot sustain long periods of around-the-clock activity without deterioration in performance and an increase in disease."

The results suggest that the bees' internal clocks were shaped by certain social cues. Jürgen Tautz, PhD, of the Julius-Maximilians Universität Würzburg in Germany, an expert in honey bee biology who was unaffiliated with the study, said it is a wonderful example of the tightly regulated interactions between genes and behavior in a bee colony. "The presence or absence of larvae switched the genes 'on' or 'off,' which guaranteed the adaptive behavior of the bees," Tautz said.

Because bees and mammals' circadian clocks are similarly organized, the question is whether the clocks of other animals also strongly depend on their social environments. The next step is to find just how social exchanges influence gene expressions. Further research into this question may have implications for individuals who suffer from disturbances in their behavioral, sleeping, and waking cycles. Research into how these rhythms may be altered and even stabilized might identify new treatment options.

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 This message brought to you by Bee Culture, The Magazine Of American Beekeeping, published by the A.I. Root Company. Read an EXCLUSIVE CHAPTER from Tom Seeley’s new book Honey Bee Democracy, only on Bee Culture’s web page Here!