Dear BEE-L subscribers:


    Justin Schmidt was mentioned in the discussion about bees and human
breath.  Here is his input on the subject:

  It is human nature to want simple answers for questions.
Unfortunately, in biology, often simple answers reveal only part of the
story, or worse, can mislead.  In the case of breath and the arousal of
honey bee attack, one might assume that the active “component” of
breath is carbon dioxide.  Wrong.  There is no magic bullet, be it
carbon dioxide or another factor in breath.  It turns out that the bees
detect a variety of chemicals and properties of breath, and when
sufficient number of these signals are present, the threshold for
attack behavior is surpassed.  Carbon dioxide alone will not cause an
attack.  This can be demonstrated by blowing air with five percent
carbon dioxide at bees at a hive entrance, and no response occurs.  But
add some small molecules of aldehydes, alcohols, ketones, and other
volatile trace components breath, plus humidity and temperature, and
you get a response.  In this case, the whole is greater than the sum of
its parts!

  In addition, other factors can come into play in the ability of breath
stimulus to arouse an attack.  These include genetics – Africanized
bees generally have much lower thresholds for attack than domestic
European bees; time of day; presence of a major nectar flow; size of
the colony; recency of disturbance of the colony; whether brood is
present or not in the colony; and, importantly, if the stimulus occurs
at the colony entrance or away from the colony.  Foragers away from the
colony have nothing to defend and typically only attempt to escape
breath.  And, finally, individual bee colonies, like individual people
have their own mild, or not-so-mild personalities.  All of these
factors combine to make conclusions based on anecdotal observations of
one or two experiences risky.

  Overall, human (or dog, or bear, or skunk, etc.) breadth generally
does arouse bees, and is the best stimulus I have encountered for
agitating a honey bee colony.

  It is true, I have retired from the constraints of government
“service” (service that is for the government, but not necessarily
service for science or for the good of society); however, I have not
retired from bee research or science.  I only wish I were “retired” so
that I would have more time to work in many areas with organisms I
love.

  Justin



Adrian M. Wenner                (805) 963-8508 (home office phone)
967 Garcia Road                 [log in to unmask]
Santa Barbara, CA  93103        www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/index.htm


Adrian M. Wenner                (805) 963-8508 (home office phone)
967 Garcia Road                 [log in to unmask]
Santa Barbara, CA  93103        www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/index.htm

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* "...the intensity of the conviction that a hypothesis is true has
*   no bearing on whether it is true or not."
*
*                                       Peter Medawar (1979)
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