Tracking Bees’ Trips

Scientists glued QR codes to bees to keep track of them and learned some surprising things.

A honeybee hive (not the one used in the study) is seen here.

What’s life like for a honeybee? Scientists glued QR codes to the backs of more than 32,000 bees and learned a few surprising things.

A QR code stores data that can be accessed when the code is scanned. The bees’ tiny QR codes couldn’t hold much more information than a number indicating each bee’s identity—but that was enough.

Entomologists (insect experts), biologists, and engineers from Pennsylvania State University used the codes to find out how far worker bees would travel to find nectar. As each bee left and then reentered the hive, a camera scanned the code to determine the bee’s identity and record the time.

Scientists learned that, while a few bees leave the hive for up to two hours, most don’t spend much more than about five minutes on each trip.

“For now, what we can see is a lot of the trips are very short,” scientist Robyn Underwood told CBS News. “[The bees are] gone less than five minutes because they’re very efficient. They go to the flowers, they fill up, they come back, they want to empty out right away, go back and forth. That’s how bees work. They are like, you know, busy as a bee.”

This finding also suggests that bees don’t travel very far from the hive.

Researchers say the discovery could help beekeepers. Currently, U.S. law states that organic beekeepers must put their hives in places that are free of pesticides within a 3.1-mile (5-kilometer) radius. Since pesticide use is common, it’s hard to find such places. But if bees don’t travel far, then maybe the law doesn’t need to be so strict.

“Pretty much in the continental U.S., you cannot be certified organic beekeepers. Because the amount of land area that is currently in the suggested regulations is so enormous,” Underwood said.

Scientists know that honeybees do what they call “waggle dances,” which are body movements that tell the other bees where nectar can be found. The scientists plan to compare the data about time spent away from the hive with their observations of waggle dances to see if they match. They also want to track the movements of the other members of the colony—the queen and the drones (the male bees in the hive).

Did You Know?

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, bees and other pollinators are responsible for one out of every three bites of food we eat.

After LA Fires, Student Actors Find Joy on Stage

When the Pacific Palisades fire destroyed their theater, a group of young performers was devastated but determined to do their upcoming show anyway. The fire, one of several that burned through the Los Angeles area in January, had caused a massive amount of damage, and many of the young cast members, who range in age from 8 to 17, lost their homes. Now the show seemed more important than ever.

“So many of our castmates have lost everything,” Lara Ganz, the director of Theatre Palisades Youth (TPY) at the Pierson Playhouse, wrote to the cast shortly after she herself lost her home. “We will continue with rehearsals. I am confident we will find a stage.”

They needed more than just a venue. All their costumes, musical instruments, lights, and sound equipment were gone. To do their show, a musical called Crazy for You, TPY would need a lot of help.

“For us, TPY is more than just a theater program—it’s a community, a family, and a safe space where kids can express themselves and shine,” Nousha Soofi, who has two kids in the cast, told Circling the News.

Ganz, along with parents of the cast members, posted pleas on social media—and the community responded. On February 28, Crazy for You opened at a local school auditorium for a two-weekend run.

Helpers included parents and friends, but also strangers. Los Angeles is the center of the filmmaking universe, a city full of creative people who answered the call for help. One of them was Tony Award nominee Kerry Butler, who starred in the Broadway show Beetlejuice. Butler gave the young cast a lesson on vocal technique.

Joy Zapata, an Emmy Award–winning hairstylist, was also inspired to help.

“I have done horror films with 100 extras running down the Pacific Coast Highway. But this time, the story was real, and it blew me away,” Zapata told the Associated Press. She was there on opening night, bringing with her with a team of Hollywood hair and makeup artists.

“I wanted these kids to walk away feeling beautiful,” Zapata said.

The show proved to be a brief escape from a difficult situation.

“One of the lines [in the show] is, ‘I’m dancing and I can’t be bothered now,’” 14-year-old Sebastian Florido, who had a leading role, told the Associated Press. “It’s really relatable. All this bad stuff was happening, but I’m tap dancing with my best friends. It was like a getaway to a little paradise.”

Are Wasps Our Friends?

We may shy away from honeybees when they hover over our picnic tables, but we couldn’t get by without these little buzzers. Bee pollination, not to mention honey, is so valuable to people that we raise honeybees, placing their hives near farms.

It’s harder to recognize the benefits of yellowjackets and other wasps. They’re more bothersome and more likely to sting than honeybees.

So why do we need wasps? You can learn more about bees’ distant cousins at Britannica.

WORD OF THE DAY

minuscule

PART OF SPEECH:

adjective

Definition:

: very small

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Criss Cross

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