WOLFGANG KIRCHNER - BUENOS AIRES (ARGENTINA)
The dances of the bees a long time ago are known as the means that these insects use to communicate. However, new scientific observations reveal that the language inside the beehive is more complex of that thought and that the dances are alone a method of exchange of information among the inhabitants of the honeycomb.
A group of biologists of the ability of Exact Sciences of the University of Good airs, headed by the doctor Walter Farina, determined that besides the traditional movements, the bees communicate with sounds and scents.
They also observed that they usually demonstrate the qualities of the nectar gathered by means of the transfer of portions for the one proven of their partners.
Farina and their assistants study the strategies of gathering of foods in the bees. They discovered that these insects don't load all the food to take it later to the beehive. The quantity depends on the productivity of the source. In the abundant plants in foods, the bee will take the biggest possible quantity, while if the source is not demasiadoproductiva it will take a small portion.
An interesting discovery of these Argentinean scientists was to observe that when the insect returns to his home, not alone it indicates his partners where the food is but rather it also distributes portions of the gathered product, for the tasting of the rest. Farina also discovered that the number and the size of the mouthfuls depend on the food that he/she found.
When noticing the dances of the bees the team of biologists of the UBA he/she noticed that not alone the end of the dance is to show the place where there is food but rather also according to the intensity of the movement the quantity of food is indicated that certain source possesses.
In a note elaborated by Ileana Lotersztain, published in the magazine FUTURE, it is explained that the excellent results obtained by the German naturalist Karl Von Frischen in their intent to decode the dances of the bees in the decade of the 40 ` it was the main impulse that Walter Farina had to be involved in this language type.
In the decade of the 40 ` Von Frisch was able to decipher the dances of the bees. The German scientist realized that the address in which the bee moves points toward the place where is the food source with regard to the position of the sun and that the speed of the dance indicates the distance that separates to the beehive of the source: while shorter that more frantic distance the dance.
For a lot of time, the language of the bees has been investigation reason. Also, several centuries ago he has been proven that these insects communicate by means of different dances, so much that Aristotle was one of the first ones in observing it, although then it didn't deepen too much.
Wolfgang Kirchner, next to a name colleague Axel Michelsen, built an artificial bee that is able to move its abdomen as well as the real ones.
The robot one believes to discover if besides dancing, the bees pecoreadoras emit sounds to get the attention of the rest of the population of the beehive. To deceive the workers, the biologists covered the artificial bee with wax and a floral fragrance.
After five years of investigation with the false insect, Kirchner and Michelsen reached the conclusion that the silent dances summon very few workers and that the sounds that emit the true ones are essential for the attraction of the bees.
