The only illustration in this article is a photo of a bee, not the cemetery, and when I turned my adblocker off the white spaces I thought might be images are all the same advert about apnea with a guy lolling around in bed with his mouth agape.
> > In the classic model of sex ratio evolution, Fisher (1958) predicted that population-wide investment in male and female offspring (as measured by biomass) should approach equality in panmictic populations. In most bees, males are smaller than females, meaning that populations are expected to be numerically male-biased, but to test the hypothesis of equal investment, one needs to consider differences between males and females in adult body weight, or some other measure of offspring "cost". To calculate investment sex ratio in the emerging population of Andrena regularis, we combined numerical sex ratio data from emergence traps with body weight data for male and female A. regularis. Average weights of the male and female A. regularis were calculated by weighing 24 dried specimens of each sex
Why do we want to measure this in dry weight? Water is also a resource, one that takes a good amount of work to supply to a beehive.
Is this more of a situation where...
- We believe that differences in water allocation are significant to the question, but we also believe that all bees receive allocations proportional to their dry weight;
- We believe that differences in water allocation are not significant to the question, because there is effectively unlimited water available and every bee can have as much as they want without affecting any other bees; or
- We believe that differences in water allocation are significant to the question, but we're measuring something else because we don't know how to measure the water allocation?
Not my area of expertise but I expect that water is disproportionately heavy and ephemeral while protein and fat is extremely resource intensive in comparison. I also expect its presence to greatly complicate specimen handling since humidity, airflow, and time since collection would then matter whereas dry weight shouldn't vary over time.
So my guess is that including it would increase variance and error without offering any benefit.
The bees live alone and do not seem to socialize in any way, so this is not a “network” or “city”. The study says “aggregation” which is more appropriate.
They live beneath the ground (nest building, building the nests, raising the young, etc) and go above ground to feed. No much different from building hives in caves and then buzzing about in the outside.
This is the study itself, which is much better, including photos of the equipment in the cemetery: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-026-01256-6
The only illustration in this article is a photo of a bee, not the cemetery, and when I turned my adblocker off the white spaces I thought might be images are all the same advert about apnea with a guy lolling around in bed with his mouth agape.
> > In the classic model of sex ratio evolution, Fisher (1958) predicted that population-wide investment in male and female offspring (as measured by biomass) should approach equality in panmictic populations. In most bees, males are smaller than females, meaning that populations are expected to be numerically male-biased, but to test the hypothesis of equal investment, one needs to consider differences between males and females in adult body weight, or some other measure of offspring "cost". To calculate investment sex ratio in the emerging population of Andrena regularis, we combined numerical sex ratio data from emergence traps with body weight data for male and female A. regularis. Average weights of the male and female A. regularis were calculated by weighing 24 dried specimens of each sex
Why do we want to measure this in dry weight? Water is also a resource, one that takes a good amount of work to supply to a beehive.
Is this more of a situation where...
- We believe that differences in water allocation are significant to the question, but we also believe that all bees receive allocations proportional to their dry weight;
- We believe that differences in water allocation are not significant to the question, because there is effectively unlimited water available and every bee can have as much as they want without affecting any other bees; or
- We believe that differences in water allocation are significant to the question, but we're measuring something else because we don't know how to measure the water allocation?
Not my area of expertise but I expect that water is disproportionately heavy and ephemeral while protein and fat is extremely resource intensive in comparison. I also expect its presence to greatly complicate specimen handling since humidity, airflow, and time since collection would then matter whereas dry weight shouldn't vary over time.
So my guess is that including it would increase variance and error without offering any benefit.
Here is a nice video with slow motion footage of the bees in flight, and an interview with the researcher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jje1LPrsHbc
The bees live alone and do not seem to socialize in any way, so this is not a “network” or “city”. The study says “aggregation” which is more appropriate.
"where they live out their entire lives below ground, building nests, raising young, and going mostly unnoticed." How do they feed?
And later the article contradicts this by saying they go above ground.
I'm confused.
They live beneath the ground (nest building, building the nests, raising the young, etc) and go above ground to feed. No much different from building hives in caves and then buzzing about in the outside.
great article to get a lot of inspirations to build next generation bio-inspired robotic swarms.
Leave them alone