Found... the honey bees with built-in central heating



Scientists have long attributed the success of the honey bee to the division of labour within the hive.

But thermal imaging research for a TV series has identified a previously unknown skill performed by a specialist bee that is vital for a colony's survival.

'Heater bees' use their bodies to provide a 'central heating' system, it has emerged.

Scientists have discovered 'heater' bees who keep the hive warm

The 'heaters' are responsible for maintaining the temperature in the hive where young bees, known as pupae, are sealed into wax cells while they grow into adult bees.

By changing the temperature of each pupa they can determine what kind of bee it will become.

Those kept at 35C mature to become the intelligent forager bees that leave the nest in search of nectar and pollen. Those kept at 34C emerge as 'house keepers'.

Horticulturalists reintroduce some 20,000 honeybees into two hives at Kew Gardens

Professor Jürgen Tautz, head of the bee group at Germany's Würzburg University, said the heater bees were vital in determining what job the young bee will perform once it matures.



As a result they are able to ensure that there are always enough bees filling each role within the colony - guaranteeing its success.



'The bees are controlling the environment they live in to make sure they can fill a need within the colony,' said Professor Tautz.



'By carefully regulating the temperature of each pupa, they change the way it develops and the likelihood of the role it will fulfil when it emerges as an adult.'



He added: 'By creeping into empty cells, one heater bee can transmit heat to 70 pupae around them. It is a central heating system for the colony.'



Using new technology the scientists were able to record the temperature within bee hives and discover the fascinating new role of the heater bee.



Until now they cited the division of labour within the hive as the secret of honey bees' success.



But the research shows that without its own unique central heating system - provided by the heater bees - they would be nowhere near as successful.



By controlling the temperature within the hive the heater bees determine the roles performed by the young bees in later life and therefore ensure there is never a shortage of skills.



The findings will be revealed later this month in a new BBC series, Richard Hammond's Invisible World, where technology is used to give a glimpse into previously unseen worlds.



Thermal imaging cameras revealed how individual heater bees warm up the nest to precisely the right temperature.



Depending on the size of the hive there can be just a few inside the nest to several hundred.



Professor Tautz added: 'The old idea was that the pupae in the brood nest were producing the heat and bees moved in there to keep warm, but what we have seen is that there are adult bees who are responsible to maintaining the temperature.



'They decouple their wings so the muscles run at full power without moving the wings and this allows them to raise their body temperature extremely high.



'Their body temperature can reach up to 44 degrees centigrade. In theory they should cook themselves, but somehow they are able to withstand this high temperature.'





