The first thing people say when they hear about bees, is that they are vicious and mean. They will complain about bees stinging them or buzzing around them annoyingly. To be truly honest I felt the same way too until I learned about how important they really are. I think we all have seen the picture of the grocery store with and without honey bees. How much less food there is when we have no bees left in the world. They are so important with the pollination of our agriculture. What happens with bees when it gets to be cold out and there are no plants to pollinate. Then they are taken down south where it will be warmer. We also don't realize the stress that transporting does on bees actually. About 50% of a colony from Michigan will be transported …show more content…
They want to study the effects of transportation on honey bees by looking at juvenile hormones, volume of the hypopharyngeal glands, protein content in the head and thorax, and the lipid content in the abdomen.
There were two groups, a stationary group and a transported group, in three trials. The three trials took place in California, Georgia, and Michigan. The methods they used were to look at the juvenile hormones from the hemolymph that they extracted. They measured the size of the hypopharyngeal glands. Protein content was measured by comparing amounts of serum protein that is derived from cows. Lastly lipid content was measured using a molecular spectrophotometer.
The California trial included twelve colony pairs that were split between the two groups. The stationary group stayed in Bakersfield, CA. The transported group was taken to Florida for 4 days. On the 6-7 days, bees were sampled and put on dry ice. They were measured for juvenile hormones, gland size, and lipid