The Daily Croissant

"A bumblebee visits a flower, drawn in by the bright colours, the patterns on the petals, and the aromatic promise of sweet nectar. But there’s more to pollination than sight and smell. There is also electricity in the air.

Dominic Clarke and Heather Whitney from the University of Bristol have shown that bumblebees can sense the electric field that surrounds a flower. They can even learn to distinguish between fields produced by different floral shapes, or use them to work out whether a flower has been recently visited by other bees. Flowers aren’t just visual spectacles and smelly beacons. They’re also electric billboards."

via phenomena.nationalgeographic.com  

 

"El Mirador flourished from about the 6th century BCE, reaching its height from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, with a peak population of perhaps more than a hundred thousand people, judging by the size and extent of the labor pool required to build the massive constructions. It then experienced a hiatus of construction and perhaps abandonment for generations, followed by re-occupation and further construction in the Late Classic era, and a final abandonment about the end of the 9th century. The civic center of the site covers some 10 square miles (26 km2) with several thousand structures."

 

 

 

In the video you can see them circling around the entrance to the nest. Jatai soldier bees are heavier -- they have larger legs but smaller bodies -- and they do not have the ability to sting. Instead, they provide a warning system for the other bees against attacks by predators, such as robber bees (Lestrimelitta limao). Robber bees simply come into a hive and steal honey but a full-scale attack can destroy an entire colony. Despite being stingless, the soldier bees are able to fight off robber bee scouts looking for a meal by clamping onto the wings and preventing them from flight.""