Within: The six legs of the honey bee do a lot more than stroll and dance. They carry out dozens of chores that impact each side of honey bee existence.
We seldom imagine the legs of bees
Believe you’re taking part in a phrase affiliation sport reminiscent of Password and your secret phrase is “bee.” The clues you may give to elicit that phrase come with “honey,” “sting,” and “swarm.” However “legs”? By no means. Not anything about legs reminds us of bees.
This text first gave the impression in American Bee Magazine, Quantity 163 No. 6, June 2023.
But bees, particularly honey bees, have one of the most niftiest legs within the animal kingdom. Even though they don’t hang a candle to millipedes for amount or harvestmen for duration, they beat them hands-down for serve as. Honey bee legs are like mini Swiss military knives: creatively designed and compactly saved gear for each goal.
The thorax is an insect’s transportation hub
Like several bugs, honey bees have six legs, every bobbing up from the thorax along the wings. However in honey bees, every leg pair has a singular construction, making every pair noticeably other from the others. And every pair plays distinctive purposes for the multitasking honey bee.
Even though bees use all 3 pairs for strolling and dancing, additionally they carry out uncommon feats we seldom go together with legs. As an example, a honey bee’s legs together with the hooked up ft (tarsal claws) can style and scent! Now the ones are in point of fact wonderful stunts for legs and ft(s).
Options all six legs have in commonplace
Ahead of we take a look at leg variations, let’s take a look at their similarities. First, all bee legs have 5 segments. Starting on the thorax and figuring out, we’ve got the coxa, trochanter, femur, tibia, and tarsus. A few of these portions is also unfamiliar to you, however some you realize, which makes them simple to be told.
As an example, you’ve got a femur to your higher leg and a tibia to your decrease leg. Those come in combination in a joint referred to as the knee. As well as, you’ve got a protecting plate protecting the joint referred to as a kneecap or patella.
Compared, a bee has six knees in precisely the similar position — between every femur and tibia. Even though maximum bee species have a protecting protect (a kneecap of varieties) on the basal finish of the rear tibia, those are conspicuously absent in honey bees. Flooring-dwelling bees use those basitibial plates to brace themselves within the grime whilst digging in order that they don’t lose traction or slip and tumble into the opening.
On the a long way finish of your human tibia, you’ve got a foot made from many smaller bones that support stability and motion. In a similar fashion, the bee foot (or tarsus) accommodates 5 subsegments that assist the bee with stability and motion.
The 5 subsegments of the tarsus are referred to as tarsomeres. The primary tarsomere, closest to the bee’s frame, is named the basitarsus and the final one is named the pretarsus or distitarsus (the toe).1 In honey bees, the a long way (distal) finish of the pretarsus sports activities two claws (referred to as tarsal claws).
5 leg segments or six?
In older publications, it is not uncommon to search out point out of six leg segments as an alternative of 5. The discrepancy comes to the tarsus, and whether or not the pretarsus will have to be a separate leg section or integrated within the tarsus as a 5th subsegment. Because the present literature typically names 5 subsegments throughout the tarsus, I’m the use of that conference. Simply needless to say you might even see it reported in a different way.
Between the tarsal claws, you’ll in finding the arolium, an adhesive pad coated with tiny hairs. The pads are helpful for strolling on vertical or inverted surfaces and enabling the bees to navigate abnormal or slippery substrates. The arolium and the tarsal claws are extensions of the pretarsus.
Bee legs come in several lengths
Even if all six legs of the honey bee have the similar segments, every pair of legs is a special duration. And it’s no longer sudden to be told that employee legs fluctuate from queen legs which fluctuate from drone legs. As a result of every form of bee has a singular position to play throughout the colony, its legs developed to suit the activity.
In employee bees, the forelegs are the shortest, adopted through the mid legs, after which the hind legs. The queen’s legs practice the similar trend, however general her legs prolong farther as a result of she has a larger frame. As well as, the queen carries her legs splayed out like a water strider, which makes them seem even longer.
Across the hive, each employees and drones stay their legs tucked below their our bodies. Bees flying lengthy distances tuck them out of the best way too, even supposing employees cling their legs earlier than touchdown, similar to an aircraft’s touchdown equipment.
All insect legs practice a an identical style, however they’ve diversifications that assist them with existence of their distinctive atmosphere. More than a few forms of bees have quirky takes at the similar portions, a lot of which is able to assist taxonomists decide a bee’s genus.
A bee leg for each goal
With some evident exceptions, honey bees use their legs like we use our fingers and ft. Listed here are some on a regular basis makes use of for 3 pairs of honey bee legs.
- Strolling, working, touchdown, and dancing: Honey bees can go for a leisurely walk alongside the touchdown board, a vertical wall stroll, or a frolic around the ceiling simply because it’s there. When alighting with a load of shipment, the legs characteristic the entire surprise absorbers and sticky pads important for secure and mild arrival. And very best of all, when a bee seems like dancing, all the ones legs mesh like a finely tooled device. Allemande left and prom proper — it’s really easy while you know the stairs.
- Greedy: Instances are many when a bee simply desires to latch on and hang tight. When the wind is tossing her flower inconsistently, when she and her sisters make a decision to construct a scaffold for comb development, or when drone dispatching seems at the schedule, the ones tarsal claws are available mighty to hand.
- Grooming and scratching: Bees comb their bristly articulated legs throughout their our bodies to assemble pollen and take away collected grime and dirt. And at times, bees seem to take a scratch identical to everybody else. Some researchers imagine the Ecu honey bee is adept at grooming away tracheal mites, one thing we’ve paid little consideration to lately.2
- Tasting and smelling: Honey bees have more than one receptors for style and scent. We discover some at the mouthparts and antennae, however unusually, some are at the tarsi. Hair-like sensory organs referred to as sensilla can come across each the style and smell of items the bee walks on. The bees ship their findings to the mind, which “comes to a decision” if the substance is an appropriate meals supply.
- Pollen amassing: Honey bee legs play a big position in pollen acquisition, with maximum segments that includes hairs that facilitate assortment. The density, duration, and thickness of hairs range relying on their location and precise goal.
Some legs are higher supplied than others for positive jobs, so let’s take a look at every pair of legs and its specialised apparatus.
Options of the honey bee’s forelegs
Even though the forelegs are the honey bee’s shortest pair, what they lack in duration they make up in serve as. As an example, it’s the foreleg tarsi that harbor the sensilla for style and scent.
As well as, every foreleg has an antenna cleaner constructed proper in. The antenna cleaner accommodates two portions: a spherical notch within the basitarsus equipped with stiff hairs, and a corresponding spur at the tibia.
To make it paintings, a bee merely lifts her foreleg over her personal antenna, after which flexes her leg. This motion makes the spur shut around the open notch, locking her antenna in a cosy ring. Then she pulls her antenna throughout the ring, an motion which scrapes off any pollen and particles caught to it.
Bees blank their antennae continuously. The antennae have sensors for feeling, smelling, and tasting — all issues which assist the bee navigate her international. As a result of they’re necessary, antennae want immaculate cleansing and upkeep. An inventive pair of forelegs makes this all occur.
As well as, the honey bee makes use of her forelegs to scrub pollen from her face and compound eyes. The hairs on her eyes hang the pollen clear of the attention floor, making them more uncomplicated to scrub.
The dull mid-legs of honey bees
I’ve heard them referred to as dull. Even though the mid-legs of the honey bee don’t have any impressive apparatus, they’re indisputably essential. The 2 mid-legs support in stability and balance. Even though we people do beautiful smartly with two legs, and maximum mammals get through with 4, bugs want to stroll in precarious puts.
Bees want to stroll on thrashing plants, limpish petals, and up slender stems. They will have to stroll at the edges of honeycombs with deep holes throughout, they usually even stroll on duckweed and pond scum (filamentous algae). As well as, they try. They fight intruders they usually combat drones out of the home when the time is correct. In every of those circumstances, that additional pair of legs helps their actions and aids in agility.
The mid-legs additionally assist seize such things as stamens because the bee collects pollen from plants: The mid-legs can cling tight whilst the forelegs interact in amassing. As well as, the mid-legs sync with the opposite pairs to scrub pollen from the bee’s frame and move it again towards the pollen baskets at the rear set of legs.
Mid-legs additionally permit “rearing up,” similar to a horse. The honey bee can combat along with her forelegs and mandibles whilst the mid-legs and rear legs paintings in combination to offer stability and reinforce.
As helpful because the mid-legs are, a honey bee can proceed to serve as as a productive member of the colony if she loses one among her mid-legs. Conversely, shedding one again leg or one foreleg ends up in incapacitation for the bee and he or she is not going to live on for lengthy.
The rear legs: particularly excellent for storing and packing
If the mid-legs are dull, the rear legs are anything else however. The rear legs are the longest and the perfect for us to acknowledge on account of their pollen baskets. Even though pollen baskets are cool in their very own proper, they don’t hang a candle to the apparatus that fills them.
Each rear legs have a secret integrated instrument for loading pollen baskets. The 2-part mechanism is named a pollen press. The pollen options two flat plates hinged in combination on one aspect. One plate is at the distal finish (the top farthest from the frame) of the tibia, whilst the opposite plate is at the basitarsus. Recall that this joint is an identical to a knee.
When a honey bee bends her leg, the plates pull aside, and he or she stuffs the open press with pollen that she collects from her frame. First, she scrapes the entire pollen into one position: the interior of the hind leg basitarsus. Then she combs it off the basitarsus with stiff bristles lining the threshold of the pollen press referred to as a pollen rake. She cleans the left leg with the fitting and the fitting leg with the left till the open press is stuffed with pollen.
While you see a honey bee busily operating her rear legs whilst status company along with her fore- and mid-legs, that is incessantly what she’s doing. She strikes lightning-fast, cleansing and combing and loading the clicking. Then all she must do to complete the activity is prolong the ones rear legs, one by one.
When she straightens her leg, the plates squeeze in combination, last towards the pollen and forcing it up into the pollen basket. It’s like a tube of toothpaste: While you squeeze the 2 facets in combination, the paste comes out the highest. Right here, when the 2 plates are squeezed in combination, the pollen flows up into the pollen basket. Even though it’s going to appear backward, the pollen basket is in fact stuffed from the ground.
Each and every time the bee grooms the pollen from her frame, she pushes it all the way down to the interior of the basitarsus of the rear legs after which into the clicking earlier than she offers it every other squeeze. Is that cool or what?
All in combination now: six legs operating directly
Whilst the legs of honey bees possess distinctive portions that paintings independently for some chores, they incessantly paintings in combination. The next actions require more than one units of legs.
Strolling: Like different bugs, the anxious device of the bee coordinates the motion of the legs in order that they don’t get twisted up. Any individual who journeys over their very own two ft is aware of how treacherous six may turn into.
However consistent with Caron & Connor in “Honey Bee Biology,” the bees’ six legs serve as in units of 3, with every set forming a triangle. “The primary and 3rd leg on one aspect paintings with the center leg of the other aspect.”3 I simplest spotted this as soon as it was once identified to me, but it surely nearly gets rid of the shuttle danger and appears more or less freaky.
Pollen packing: Every other instance of legs operating in combination happens because the bee cleans its frame of pollen. A bee that has been foraging can have pollen in all places, from head to foot. She wishes to gather it all and someway get it within the pollen baskets.
In a easy collection, the forelegs move the pollen to the mid-legs, which move it to the rear legs, incessantly crisscrossing backward and forward because the left aspect cleans the fitting and vice versa. Watch a honey bee packing pollen and you’ll see all six legs operating in unity.
Festooning: The tarsal claws on all six ft assist the honey bee seize onto items or onto every different. When honey bee employees shape a festoon — a kind of lacy-looking scaffolds — the bees cling onto every different’s legs to shape intricate chains. Since the legs are sturdy and versatile, chain construction offers bees simple get entry to to spaces that will another way be tough to succeed in.
Pheromone distribution: All six ft ship the footprint pheromones used for communique and colony law. When a employee walks throughout a flower petal, or around the front to her hive, hive pals can “learn” this sign and know they’re in the fitting position.
Washboarding: Every other use for all six legs directly is washboarding. Right through washboarding, you’ll see many bees at the entrance of the hive, most likely loads. All of them face the similar course and rock from side to side in a enchanting show. Glance moderately and you’ll see the rear 4 legs keep in a single spot, whilst the forelegs step ahead and again, ahead and again.
In conjunction with the stairs, the bees do one thing with their mouthparts. This baffling conduct is regarded as associated with cleansing, sprucing, or pathogen control, but nobody is aware of evidently. What we do know is that it’s nice a laugh to look at.
Please blank your ft earlier than access
Maximum beekeepers concern little about the entire strolling honey bees do throughout the hive. Alternatively, manufacturers of comb honey obsess over it. The issue? Foragers have grimy ft. Extremely grimy ft.
As foragers input the hive from the nice outdoor, they depart footprints in all places. The grime would possibly come from out of doors the hive or the bees would possibly gather grime and bits of pollen at the trek from the hive front to the honey garage space. Finally, those grimy trails have a reputation: “trip stain.”
Go back and forth stains can harm a comb honey manufacturer’s final analysis. As a substitute of gleaming white cappings, the possible buyer would possibly see a smeared darkness, harking back to a senescent dishrag. Or every now and then the stain resembles smeared egg yolk — just like the yellow brick highway, simplest no longer in an effective way. Those smudges outcome from layer upon layer of pollen laid down through 1000’s of ft touring from side to side, day to day.
Some comb honey manufacturers give their bees higher entrances to stay the foragers from stepping in brood field particles on tips on how to the supers. Others stay an in depth watch at the frames, in an instant casting off any that turn into totally capped.
Once I visited a daffodil breeding heart in Oregon, I needed to step in a bleach bucket earlier than getting into the fields to stop soil contamination. I’ve incessantly concept that comb honey manufacturers desire a an identical foot tub for his or her bees to stay them blank sufficient for the activity.
The six-pack that assists in keeping honey bees on their ft
The following time you’re staring at your honey bees, glance intently at the ones complicated underrated legs. Check out to determine what they’re doing, how they coordinate, and the place they’re saved.
Honey bee legs supply a super instance of the large have an effect on that reputedly insignificant portions of nature may have. The complexity and suppleness of honey bee legs (and feats) ring a bell in me to realize the ones small issues that incessantly pass neglected.
References
- Michener CD. 2007. Bees of the International, second Ed. Johns Hopkins College Press. Baltimore, MD.
- Danka RF and Villa JD. 1997. Proof of auto-grooming as a mechanism of honey bee resistance to tracheal mite infestation. Magazine of Apicultural Analysis 37(1): 39-46C.
- Caron DM and Connor LJ. 2013. Honey Bee Biology and Beekeeping. Wicwas Press. Kalamazoo, MI.
About Me
I subsidized my love of bee science with a bachelor’s stage in Agronomic Vegetation and a grasp’s in Environmental Research. I write broadly about bees, together with a present column in American Bee Magazine and previous columns in Two Million Blossoms and Bee Craft. I’ve continued more than one classes in melittology and made intensive identifications of North American bees for iNaturalist and different organizations. My grasp beekeeper certificates issued from U Montana. I’m additionally an English nerd. Extra right here.