Thermoregulation in Bees

Abstract

Otto Plath, a Harvard entomologist and father of the poet Sylvia Plath, once summarized the common wis? dom about how bees respond to changes in temperature. Like all cold? blooded animals/' he wrote, honey? bees and bumblebees have no means of regulating their body temperature, and their exposure to cold invariably results in lethargy, and often death. Many have shared the belief of Plath, who wrote more than half a century ago, that insects are poikilotherms, animals that cannot regulate their body tempera? ture. Nevertheless, thermoregulatory be? havior is particularly well developed in several insects and particularly in bees, which can adjust their body temperature over a wide range of environmental con? ditions. Bees need thermoregulation to fly, to forage and to incubate their young. The medianisms they have developed to accomplish these tasks are as diverse as bees themselves. Bees are a diverse group of insects in both social organization and environ? mental range. Some are strictly solitary; others are highly social, having tens of thousands of individuals in a colony. In addition, different species can be found across an extraordinary range of the earth's thermal environments. Bees are