Life and Death Among the Flowers:
The Perils and Secret Language of Bees

Second Nature Matters lecture

January 12, 2009

By Susan Brown

The length of her buzz as she unloads food tells how high this Panamanian stingless bee flew to find it. Photo Credit: James Nieh

In the struggle with rivals to control valuable nectar, bees sometimes resort to espionage and gang violence. This fiercely competitive world has led some species to evolve clandestine codes of movements and sounds to exchange information while hidden in their hives.

Evolutionary biologist James Nieh, associate professor of biology at UC San Diego, will reveal the secret language of bees in a talk at the San Diego Natural History Museum in Balboa Park on Thursday, January 22 at 6:30 pm. The event is free, and registration begins at 6:00 pm at the museum. This will be the second in a series of public talks presented by UC San Diego’s Division of Biological Science called Nature Matters.

Fierce Trigona hyalinata bees lay directional scent trails that help them arrive in force to drive away competitors. Photo Credit: James Nieh

Nieh has traveled as far as Panama and Brazil to watch bees and take note of their behavior. Some, like Brazilian stingless bees in a group called Trigona are so fierce that they will take on Africanized honey bees and even attack birds. They follow chemical trails left by other bees and arrive in a swarm to fight off meeker foragers which often lose their heads as they grapple with their opponents.

Bees waggle and buzz, secrete scents and possibly emit heat, all to let their hivemates know how to find the best food. Although biologists have known of bee dances and songs for some time, few have asked how such a complex, symbolic code could have evolved. In this lecture, Nieh will talk about his research group’s efforts to find out.

All Nature Matters lectures will be held at the San Diego Natural History Museum in Balboa Park on Thursdays at 6:30 pm. UCSD-TV will tape each talk for later broadcast on local cable channels. Topic and speakers for the remaining talks include:

James Nieh will talk about the perils of pollination.

Life and Death Among the Flowers: the Perils and Secret Language of Bees by James Nieh, January 22, 2009

Life on the Edge: Ingenious Survival Strategies in the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts by Therese Markow, February 26, 2009

Climate Change and Southern California Ecosystems by Elsa Cleland, April 30, 2009

Ants Marching: A Biological Invasion in Your Own Backyard by David Holway, May 14, 2009

Click here for more information about the lectures, directions, parking and UCSD-TV broadcasts. For other free public lecture programs offered by the San Diego Natural History Museum.

Amylin Pharmaceuticals, The Ray Thomas Edwards Foundation, and Kirin Pharma provided generous funding to enable UC San Diego to bring our 2008-2009 Science Matters Lecture Series to you.

Media Contact: Susan Brown, 858-246-0161