Recently, I've switched labs again (collecting as much experience as possible while I am still a student). I'm now a lab assistant at the neurobiology lab of our University. Usually, I'm working with a neuroblastoma cell line (basically neurons), but others in the lab are using animals - specifically bees.
Why would a neurobiologist researching human neurons want to use bees?
Honeybees are a valuable model organism for the investigation of basic neurobiological questions because of their social way of live, their rich and extremely varied learned behaviour patterns, and their easily accessible brains.
Bees can learn, bees are social, and they're not that difficult to keep (compared to mice).
Of course, they still need to be cared for, especially if you require a constant supply. That's straightforward in summer, but during winter it's slightly more challenging, as you can't keep the bee hives outside, or they'll likely freeze to death. That's why the lab I'm working at has winter hives inside a greenhouse!
Winter hives, © Suesa, February 2019
As you can see in the picture above, there are two hives, surrounded by a thin net to keep the bees in.
Inside this room, it's a toasty 25 °C, even when it's a cold, rainy day outside.
Temperature and Humidity inside the winter room, © Suesa, February 2019
Now, aside from keeping the bees warm and dry, what needs to be done during winter?
Well, you need to clean bee poop.
Yes, bee poop.
Bee poop, © Suesa, February 2019
For some reason, I never thought about the fact that bees poop. You might actually have seen bee poop before, on the roofs of white cars. Yellow-brown streaks are very likely to come from bees flying over the car. There's a whole article2 about bee poop, if you want it analyzed in detail.
To keep the desks on which the hives stand (relatively) clean, they're covered with paper that's replaced on a daily basis.
Another, slightly sad, daily task is to collect the dead bees outside the hives.
Honeybee workers only live for about 4 to 8 weeks3, which means there are a bunch of them that die of natural causes on a daily basis. Luckily, tend to crawl outside to die, so they're easy to collect and discard.
Daily corpses, © Suesa, February 2019
Generally, you're only supposed to collect dead bees, but it can happen that one is still slightly alive and ends up stinging you. I personally don't have an allergy - as far as I am aware, but stings still really, really hurt. So I use these fancy gloves, that are way too warm in the 25 °C room.
* Don't sting me-gloves, © Suesa, February 2019
One of my colleagues, who has worked with bees for a very, very long time now and has her own colonies, skips the gloves and handles the bees with her hands, dead or alive. According to her, at this point, a sting "only hurts for exactly two minutes, and then it's okay. I don't even get a rash anymore."
Good for her. I'm still rather careful, especially with the bees flying around freely.
They don't want to sting me, but they will if they feel threatened.
Flying bee, © Suesa, February 2019
The last necessary step is to feed the bees, as they can obviously not forage for food. For that, I have a glass of compressed pollen, which can be bought.
Compressed pollen, © Suesa, February 2019
I asked my colleague where we get that pollen from, is it somehow manufactured?
No, it's not. It's collected directly from the bees!
Pollen is collected with a pollen trap, made out of a grid, placed
on the entrance of the hive.4
Bees collecting pollen for other bees. Neat.
The compressed pollen needs to be pulverized again, for which I use a tiny blender. The powder is then put in a petri dish and placed next to the hive.
Ground up pollen, © Suesa, February 2019
Cleaned hive, © Suesa, February 2019
I had planned to film what happens next, but contrary to the day before, when the bees were very active and immediately started collecting the pollen, they were super lazy this day.
The general process is that one bee notices the pollen (they can actually smell it!) and it starts covering itself with it, which looks kind of cute. It then proceeds to fly back into the hive, to inform the others. A few moments later bees start flying out, and the room is filled with a loud buzzing sound.
They fly around for a bit, as it's not normal that the pollen is placed in an easy to reach dish right in front of the hive. That's not how things work in nature, normally, so there's some confusion before they finally find their new food source and begin collecting the pollen to bring inside.
Together with the pollen, they're also supplied with water and sugar water, to ensure they're well-fed and hydrated.
My last task that day was to collect some bees for experimental purposes.
Bees collected for experimental purposes, © Suesa, February 2019
As I mentioned before, I am not using them myself, so I can't describe the experiment they're used in to you. But you might notice that they are only 10 bees. Several of them were already in the process of dying when I collected them, which was okay because they were not needed for behavioral experiments. They would have died today anyway, which avoids unnecessary removal of healthy bees from the hive.
A researcher always needs to ensure that their test organisms are healthy and (as) happy (as possible), or there won't be any meaningful results. Bees or mice, in the end, it doesn't matter.
As usual, I close with the remark that I'm looking forward to the day that we are able to stop using animals of any kind for our research. But until then, they're necessary.
2 Steem for the person who can come up with the best bee puns in the comments.
Sources:
1 Neurobiology of the Honeybee
2 The Origin of Mysterious Yellow Globs
3 Regulation of life history determines lifespan of worker honey bees (Apis mellifera L.)
4 Pollen: Collection, Harvest, Compostion, Quality
