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Science Quickly

A Honeybee Swarm Has as Much Electric Charge as a Thundercloud

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.2639 Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2022

⏱️ 6 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

New research shows that bees “buzz” in more than the way you might think. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

0:05.8

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years.

0:11.0

Yachtold also partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for gut health, an investigator-led research program.

0:20.1

To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yawcult.co.

0:22.7

.jp. That's y-A-K-U-L-T.C-O.jp. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacult.

0:35.4

This is Scientific American 60 Second Science.

0:38.5

I'm Shayla Love.

0:43.8

When you hear a bee buzzing along, visiting a flower,

0:47.0

you're hearing the movement of air made by the fluttering of its wings.

0:50.2

But it turns out that bees are buzzing in more than one way.

0:56.0

I first saw this when I saw a bumblebee land on an electrode I was using, and I saw a real change in the measurement.

1:04.2

And I thought, this is a charged thing.

1:06.8

That's Giles Harrison, a professor of atmospheric physics at the University of Reading in England.

1:11.6

He's co-author of a recent paper in eye science that measured the electric charge of swarms of bees

1:16.1

and found that the insects can generate as much electricity as storm clouds.

1:20.8

We know for quite a long time already that bees carry an electric charge.

1:27.8

Ellard Hunting is a biologist at the University of Bristol in England,

1:30.9

and he studies how different organisms use those electric fields in the environment.

1:35.3

Plants in pollen tend to be negatively charged, and bees are positively charged.

1:39.3

The bee visits a flower, and the pollen are actually electrostatically attracted to the bee,

1:46.4

and so they stay better, and they're transferred better.

1:49.6

There are several honeybee hives that are used for research at the field station at the University

...

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