April 13, 2008 - Hot Bees

Welcome to the Nature Notebook.

On cool spring mornings bumblebees are active when most other bees are too cold to fly. Part of this cold tolerance has to do with their furry bodies that help insulate them from cold air. But that is only part of the story. Just as we might sip a hot drink to warm up, so do bumblebees. Recently scientists found that bumblebees select specific flowers from which to sip nectar. These blossoms have structures that focus the sun’s energy warming the nectar deep inside. The warm nectar in turn warms the bees and enables them to be active at temperatures as low as 40^oF. By comparison, honeybees need temperatures 20^o higher before they are active. The bumblebee’s adaptations allow it to take advantage of early spring wildflowers and pollinate them in the process of sipping their nectar.

This is PPL's naturalist, Jon Beam, with the Nature Notebook for WVIA.