Bees are able to maintain the temperature of the hive at about 34 degrees, regardless of the outside temperature. This is managed by specialist ‘heater bees’, who generate heat by beating the muscles that would normally power their wings.
They also use temperature to control the make up of the workforce. As the pupae are developing they are kept at a steady temperature but the temperature will determine the role of the newly hatched bee. For example, pupae kept at 35 degrees will develop into foragers whereas those kept at 34 degrees will become housekeepers.
In order to find out where the bees thermometer is, scientists came up with a simple experiment. They chopped bits off a bee until the bee could no longer determine temperature, and whatever bit they chopped off last — that’s where the thermometer is. And it turns out it’s in their antenna, much to the relief of the bees being lined up for the ‘I wonder if it’s in their heads’ test. The antenna also detects sound, touch, smell, taste, chemicals and wind speed. So it’s basically a highly sensitive data-collector.
Bees also need to measure temperature in order to build their honeycomb, as they build everything from wax, which becomes flexible when they heat it up. They first create hollow cylinders of wax, which they build in a pile, and then they heat them up again so the cylinders collapse slightly to fill in all the gaps.
The round shape of the cylinders becomes hexagons, so it looks like the bees don’t intentionally build perfect hexagons, its more a property of the wax.
The wax honeycomb is also important for communication, as it is key to the waggle dance. During the waggle dance, the bee grips the honeycomb with all 6 legs, and then the dancing is actually more of a vigorous bum shaking, which sends vibrations through the honeycomb. Nearby bees then feel the vibrations through their feet and head straight to the dancer. When they bump into her, they begin to follow the dance.
Scientists tested the honeycomb and it transmits vibrations best at about 250 Hz, which is also the preferred twerking frequency of a waggle dancing bee.
In the unlikely event that you are interested in more detail, the visible waggle is at about 15 Hz, but at the extreme point of each twerk, the bee emits an almost invisible 250hz super-twerk. If there is no super-twerk, then the waggle-dancing bee is completely ignored by the other bees.
