Bees ejaculate to death during heat waves

It’s a pretty macabre scene. New research has published that bees, specifically the male workers, the drones, are suffering a horrible and quite unusual death during severe heat waves. As the scientists observed, dozens of drones appeared dead on the ground as if they had literally exploded from the inside out.

The reason? The increase in temperatures resulting from climate change that, because of this excessive heat, forces these bees to ejaculate to death , with an “internal penis equivalent” of the same size as that of the bee coming out of the insect’s own abdomen . It is a consequence of the shock of the proximity of heat death: they convulse and spontaneously ejaculate until they die.

“When drones die of shock, they spontaneously ejaculate,” explains Alison McAfee, a postdoctoral fellow at the Michael Smith Laboratories at the University of British Columbia. “They have this elaborate endophallus that sticks out and it’s about the size of their own abdomen. It’s pretty extreme.”

In the midst of the 2021 summer heat wave, Armstrong beekeeper Emily Huxter began noticing dozens of dead drones on the ground. He took photos and emailed them to researcher McAfee, who contacted other British Columbia beekeepers who were witnessing the same mass drone die-off, raising real concerns about the survival of the colonies.

Imperative: Keep the bees cool

Rising temperatures caused by climate change will require species to adapt to survive, but given the landscape we’re already seeing, honey bees need a little help from keepers to withstand heat stroke.

Experts say a simple Styrofoam cover over hives could help cool them down during heat waves and could prevent swarms of drones from ending in such a dramatic death, as if they “have literally exploded from the inside out.” In this way, we would not only save the bees, but also increase the production of honey.

The researchers tested polystyrene covers of about 5 centimeters on six hives and another six without covers as control hives. They found that the covered hives were nearly four degrees Celsius (3.75 degrees Celsius) cooler than the control hives. Styrofoam acted as a stabilizer: nighttime lows and daytime highs were less extreme.

Additionally, they devised another method of stabilizing temperatures: a trough filled with sugar syrup to act as a bee cooling station. Bees would naturally seek out water to bring back to the hive and would fan it with their wings to cool it down, achieving evaporative cooling much like humans do when we sweat. It also had an effect: syrup-fed hives were 1.1°C cooler than control hives.

The interior of a bee colony is thermoregulated. It is a stable environment that maintains a temperature of around 35 degrees Celsius, but heat waves have pushed these insects to the limit.

“We know that after six hours at 42C, half of the drones will die of heat stress. The most sensitive ones start to perish within two to three hours. That’s a temperature they shouldn’t normally experience, but we were seeing stressed drones.” to the point of death,” says McAfee.

The researcher said she will carry out more experiments to help protect these planet-essential pollinators from sweltering summer temperatures.

At the moment, this study was a practical experiment and has not yet been detailed in a peer-reviewed article in the hope of delving into possible solutions to save drones from the scorching heat that in a few weeks will begin, again, to do effect.

Referencia: Alice McAfee, Beehive Research Cluster / University of British Columbia