Found in Translation

摘要

Last month I reviewed fundamental studies that have used hand-tagged bees to determine with actuarial precision the typical worker bee lifespan and productivity. These. studies rely on Radio-frequency identification (RFID), a tagging system that beats other methods by usingi extremely liteweight paper tags. RFID tags, unique to each bee, respond to an antenna signal every time tagged bees pass a hive recorder. An author of one of these RFID studies, Andrew Barron from Australia's Macquarie University (http://andrewbarron.org/), pointed me to a brand-new study from their group. This study combined the power of RFID with careful colony-level field experiments to determine the subtler effects of chemical stress on the endurance of foraging workers. Already oddly obsessed with the forces that lead to worker burnout, I was hooked. It turns out that this is one of many studies that have used RFID to spy on both overachieving workers and those that don't bring home the pollen. These studies are pushing the limits for our understanding of the subtler causes of honey bee colony failure.