“Many rules of bee society — from collective and individual interactions to raising healthy young bees — are adjusted by temperature, so we take advantage of that for this study,” explains Rafael Barmak, first author of a paper published recently.
“Previous studies on the thermal (heat-related) behavior of honeybees in winter have relied on observing the bees or controlling the outside temperature,” adds Martin Stefanec of the University of Graz. Now, scientists have developed a robotic system that can be built into a honeybee hive (蜂箱), which enables scientists to change the temperature from within the colony (蜂群), copy the thermal behavior of bees there, and study how the winter colony actively adjusts its temperature.
It’s challenging to study bees in winter since they are sensitive to cold, and opening their hives risks harming them. But thanks to the robotic system, scientists were able to study three experimental hives located at the Artificial Life Lab in Austria, while controlling them from a public research university in Switzerland. Inside the device, a central processor organized the sensors, which created a quick picture of the bees’ collective behavior, sent commands to the actuators (制动器) and passed on data to the scientists. That demonstrated the system could be used to study bees without entering the hives or without even cameras.
By gathering data on the bees’ position and creating warmer areas in the hive, scientists could encourage bees to move around in ways they would never normally do in nature during winter when bees tend to gather together to conserve energy. For example, scientists could direct bees colony toward a food source or discourage it from dividing into too small groups, which could threaten its survival.
The scientists were able to prolong the existence of a colony following the death of its queen by distributing heat energy via the actuators. Bees are one of the most important pollinators (传粉者), and their survivability has become a growing environmental and food security concern as pollinators’ global populations have declined.
【小题1】What is the underlying logic behind the robotic system?| A．Bees’ sensitive response to heat. |
| B．Bees’ preference to live in groups. |
| C．Temperature adjustment of bee society. |
| D．Different work assignments of the bee colony. |
| A．It can provide inner heating remotely. |
| B．It can open the hives automatically. |
| C．It can absorb outside heat constantly. |
| D．It can send real-time data through its camera. |
| A．To design better hives. | B．To increase bee biodiversity. |
| C．To enhance bee survivability. | D．To learn how to distribute energy. |
| A．A Robotic Group — a Bee Individual Colony |
| B．A Robotic System — a Hidden Window to Bees |
| C．The Thermal Sensor — a Barrier to Cold Climate |
| D．The Bee Society — the World’s Most Important Insects |
