Heater bee
A worker warming brood by pressing her thorax against capped cells or entering empty ones.
Bees
Definition
Heater bees decouple their wings and shiver the flight muscles, running thoracic temperatures above 40 °C, then transfer that heat directly to brood cells. This is how a colony holds its brood nest within about a degree of 35 °C, which is comparable precision to a mammal regulating its own body.
See also
Other bees terms
Sources
Sources
- The Biology of the Honey Bee — Harvard University Press (1987) · Textbook
- The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild — Princeton University Press (2019) · Monograph
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