Christina: You said:
although bees do have an amazing number of
neurons *for their size* we humans dwarf them in every respect, including
numbers of neurons. So recovery from a "drunk" for a human is less significant
than recovery for a "drunk" in a bee, because we can lose more of our
neurons...and still function normally...than they can. That bee has a shorter,
less productive life after a "drunk" than it would have had without the "drunk".
I don't necessarily agree with your 'tiny brain' hypothesis. Can you show me hard data to support this 'shorter productive life'? Our behavioral work obviously shows the effect you describe if the bees get a large enough dose, but we don't necessarily see any long term effect on bees that 'sober' up in a reasonable amount of time - less than a couple of hours.
The bees have so few neurons for their size argument doesn't necessarily apply in the ways we'd intuit. When DARPA asked whether bees could be trained to search for things based on odor, the established 'olfactory' experts rejected the offer, saying 1) bees don't have a very good sense of smell (although a couple knew better), and 2) they have such tiny brains, they couldn't afford to waste brain processing on being able to identify odors other than floral resources and pheromones. Wrong on both accounts - we've shown bees can instantaneously recognize non-food, non-pheromone odors for a huge array of chemicals down into the parts per quadrillion range (e.g., both TNT derived explosives and plastics like C-4), and that they can locate drugs, solvents, dead bodies, explosives, virtually anything volatile enough to produce an odor plume.
You did agree with the conclusions of my 'heroes', but I got a sense you didn't view these experts in the same manner as I do - but I may be wrong.
I didn't always agree with them - I even sat on the other side of a courtroom from Larry Atkins on two different trials. Yet, I call them heroes because they made a critical decision to test pesticides and hazards posed to bees in standardized ways that allowed everyone to compare the data, and they published it all, and in quick time. They ranked the chemicals based on toxicity and a tiered assessment approach. They looked at issues like field weathering and residual toxicity and how that changed with time (e.g., RT25, RT40). They summarized all of this in numerous free publications, and finally produced a book - which Larry Conner at Wicwas Press has now republished in paper and electronic formats. And finally, I find toxicity trials to be depressing - I personally hate killing bees, but they did this day in and day out for their entire careers - all so they could provide rankings of hazard for all marketed chemicals and positive recommendations and management strategies for reducing risk of pesticide poisoning that any beekeeper can take and should know.
Finally, 36th Annual Western Apicultural Society (WAS) meeting is Sept 17-20 in Missoula on The University of Montana campus. Primary lodging is at Double Tree Inn Edgwater by Hilton. Sept 17 is the 2nd International Workshop on Hive and Bee Monitoring and start of WAS conference. 18-19th is the WAS Trade Show and WAS Speaker Program. Also, on the 18th, the UM Food Services is hosting their annual Farm to College Feastival (organic, farm to school, affordable dinner and activities in the evening on the UM Campus). Saturday morning there will be WAS workshops for the convention and the community. There's also a Color Run via our UM Recreation Department. Saturday afternoon, the Missoula Honey Harvest Festival on UM Oval in center of campus. And, if there's sufficient interest, a bus tour on Sat morning to Darby to view an engineered honey bee colony overwintering shed.
There are ads in this months ABJ and Bee Culture, and more information in the WAS newsletter and WAS web page. Eric Mussen just updated the web page - he had lots to do, but tells me its been posted now. FYI, I assume everyone knows Eric retires end of next month?
Also, Christina keep the cap - its good advertising, we'd like to recruit some east coast students to come to UM and learn what we do with bees.
Best, Jerry
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