Tag: publication

• Accepted or rejected?

  I read this interesting article about decision-making by honeybees. The research shows that bees are faster to accept a flower than to reject it. In other words, the bee hovers in front of the flower for short time before eventually landing on it, but making decision not to land requires (on average) more time. The decision about accepting flower is made with high accuracy: bees rarely land on a flower which is not rewarding (provided they can know about it, of course, that is, they have experience with this type of flower, which was the case in the study), but some rewarding flowers are “mistakenly” rejected. When they have difficulty with making a decision because of limited evidence available, they’ll rather reject a flower than accept it. I think that would make them quite good review editors!

  I must add that the flowers in the experiments were artificial ones, but I don’t think it matters much for the results 😉

  

  December 4, 2023

  bee, bees, honeybee, insects, justyna kierat, nature, nonhoneybees, publication, wild bees, wildbees

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• Traveler

  Halictus scabiosae and H. sexcinctus are two related species, and quite similar in appearance. There are two particular differences, among others, between them*. First, H. sexcinctus (but not scabiosae) females have acarinarium on their first tergite, which is a cozy place for mites of a specific species, Anoetus halicticola. Second, H. scabiosae increases its range quite fast in recent decades. In Poland this species was first observed in 2020, and a few days ago we published a short note about its further dispersal. It travels fast!

  *I don’t know about causal relationship between presence of acarinarium and dispersal, don’t treat the cartoon scenario too seriously 🙂

  

  July 3, 2023

  bee, bees, Halictus, insects, justyna kierat, nature, nonhoneybees, publication, wild bees, wildbees

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