Since I am a firm believer in the old dishpan beating form of catching swarms, you will never convince me that bees neither hear nor feel sound waves.

 

iddee, I agree

 

Who said bees can't hear? It's my understanding they're acutely sensitive to several discrete frequencies, at the very least. I forget what they are right now. So for me, the "if bees can't hear" is a moot point. The interesting part of the question is "why do queens pipe?".

Now that I think about it, Mark said they don't hear because they don't have ears. They may not have ears in the conventional sense, but they could well have sound sensors we don't know about. That's all ears are really, mechanisms to translate vibrations in the air into neural impulses in the brain. If they can sense vibrations, then they can "hear" IMHO. They have smell sensors in their antennae and in their feet, so where's their nose?

Reminds me of a joke- a trick-or-treater arrives at a home one Halloween dressed as a pirate. The lady at the door says "Thats sweet, a pirate. Where are your buccaneers?" to which the kid replied, "They're under me buccanhat".

George-

 

Bees CAN hear.

There is a well-known part of bee anatomy called
the "Johnson's Organ", right at the base
of the antennae. It detects vibrations in the
air, much as our ears do. Many insects have
something similar.

Now, when a queen pipes, or when foragers dance
there is both vibration of comb and airborne
sound produced, so bees get a mix of inputs.
But Wyatt Mangum and I messed around with a
set of small digital sounds, playing them
through small speakers that were either
embedded in the comb or held inches away from
the comb, and the usual "freeze response" of the
bees was evident in response to a cleaned-up
recording of queen piping regardless of whether
the speaker was in the air, or embedded in comb.
The speaker embedded in the comb was clearly
audible, so we conclude that it produced both
vibrations and airborne sound, while the speaker
in the air was assumed to only produce negligible
comb vibration.

What's interesting to me is that "queen piping"
is, by chance, very much "in tune" with the
musical notes G-sharp and A (several G-sharps,
followed by an longer A note). Nothing profound
here, just interesting that the frequencies are
very very close to "perfect pitches".

We came out with a product based upon this
series of experiments, but very few beekeepers
have cared enough about the mental health of
their bees to purchase one.
http://www.bee-quick.com/rpt2/calm.html

 

"What's interesting to me is that "queen piping"
is, by chance, very much "in tune" with the
musical notes G-sharp and A (several G-sharps,
followed by an longer A note). Nothing profound
here, just interesting that the frequencies are
very very close to "perfect pitches"."

Cool info, thanks.

 

>Nothing profound here, just interesting that the frequencies are very very close to "perfect pitches"

Nothing profound here? NOTHING PROFOUND HERE? This, from the man that brought us Multi Modal Mystery Therapy, Hive Biorhythms, and Feng Shui Hive Placement, just to mention a few?

Oh... I get it... you're researching yet another new age beekeeping product and you don't wanna spill the beans just yet. OK. I see.

 

From Jims link

>>We have developed a 200,000 Watt amplifier and speaker system powered by a car battery that can be placed in the apiary, and will play queen piping sounds constantly, keeping all bees in hives within a 100-foot radius in a near-constant "freeze-response" state, as is their normal response to queen piping. This provides rest and relaxation for the bees, and more importantly, the peace and quiet required to meditate.

>>We came out with a product based upon this
series of experiments, but
>>>very few beekeepers
have cared enough about the mental health of
their bees to purchase one.<<<<


Do you routenely give your hives meditation time Jim?
Do they work harder afterwards? Can you work your hives during their meditation time while they are at easy?
There must be a reason to provide bees meditation time?

interesting all the same,

 

Jim,
I love your 200,000 watt amps for bee meditation. Can I order a dozen for my apiaries? I have a feeling they may be useful for 'calming' local teenagers, too...

So, bees can hear. Which means that - as a sense doesn't evolve unless it has survival value - that they must use this ability and it must be important to them in at least one way - probably more. Sounds like we need to do some research involving v. sensitive microphones - I think the Apidictor man must have done some of this - I'm gonna look it up.

The G#-A above middle C frequency range is:

G#/Ab 415.30 Hz @ 83.1 cm
A 440.00 Hz @ 78.4 cm

(The second figure is wavelength)

It would be interesting to play a range of frequencies to see how/if they respond. Did you do this, Jim?

There must be applications here such as:

- predicting swarming based on sounds in hive
- 'sound spray' instead of smoke to calm bees (probably less than 200 Kw though...)
- early warning of mite infestation
- early warning of starvation

and lots more, I dare say.

Now some scientist will pop up and tell us that there is no scientific evidence that bees can hear...

 

Do bees sing the blues?

D-F-G-G#-A-C-D is the (hexatonic!) blues scale.

This is getting interesting...

 

> Can I order a dozen for my apiaries?

Not only yes, but HECK yes! Do you want
battery-powered or 120Vac (inverter) powered?

> It would be interesting to play a range of
> frequencies to see how/if they respond.
> Did you do this, Jim?

Yes, and one can be as much as 10Hz to 20Hz "off"
and still get a "freeze response" from the workers.

> Do bees sing the blues?

Not if they read a bee's favorite part of the
Bible, the Bee-Attitudes! (Beatitudes, Matthew 5:3)

> Now some scientist will pop up and tell us that
> there is no scientific evidence that bees can
> hear...

Not to worry, there is more than sufficient
evidence that bees can hear airborne sound.

 

>> Now some scientist will pop up and tell us that
>> there is no scientific evidence that bees can
>> hear...

>Not to worry, there is more than sufficient
>evidence that bees can hear airborne sound.

And that would stop them from claiming there are no studies to prove it?

 

Do the bees get little mats and little tight spandex suits to wear while meditating?

Waya

 

>.....with the
musical notes G-sharp and A (several G-sharps,
followed by an longer A note).

Could you list the frequency? G-sharp and A are repeated in every octave. Also: What is the duration of the notes and the rest between, if any?

Thanks,
Tom

 

wayacoyote, Bees do it naked!

 

I have forgotten who it was that first said bees can't hear, but looks like that is a minority opinion

 

> Could you list the frequency? G-sharp and A are
> repeated in every octave. Also: What is the
> duration of the notes and the rest between, if any?

Oh, never heard queen piping?
Easier if you just listen:

http://www.lcbaor.org/piping.htm

Any time queen cages are left near each other
for a few hours, one has a good chance of hearing
queen piping, which is weird given that
these are mated queens rather than virgins.

> And that would stop them from claiming there
> are no studies to prove it?

Its in many basic bee biology books, so the
"proof" seems to be sufficient for all and sundry.
There are a number of studies that have tried
to narrow down the actual frequency ranges
that bees can hear, so the basic concept of
"bees can hear" is much better established than
the longstanding claim made in "The Wizard of ID"
that "Clams got LEGS!".

 

<Bees do it naked!>

If we can get enough of us in a circle under a full moon we could serenade the queens with the G# G# G# A and then get started on find the right song to chase away the Varroa Destructor.

Or is someone gonna say they can't hear either?

Hawk

 

Thanks, Jim. I imagined more of a pure tone. It's more like a quack, or a dog barking. A couple of the toots actually sounded like the word. "Toooooot!"

 

Clearly, queens pipe to communicate, primarily I assume, based upon the circumstances when it's usually heard, with virgins yet to emerge. Probably the bees take it all in and know what's going on too.

I wish Ruth Rosin was here to answer this question..

 

Another reason you all need an observation hive. Let them raise their own queen and you'll get to hear them pipe. When the queen is still in the cell it sounds more like a "Quack". When the queen is out running around it sounds more like a "Zzzooot"

 

from what i heard not just on that site but also from queens i've heard piping 'live' it sounds more like the queen starts on the G# and slides up to the A in the first longer pipe then carries on in shorter A pulses and in some cases it sounds like the pulses go from A and slide down ever so slightly to not quit the G# again. one of my hobbys is recording and composing music and all this is totally fasinating to me. i never really thought about it but next chance i get i'm going to get my guitar tuner out to see what frequency these pipes are in. it didn't sound like all the pipes were the same on that site and also different variations to how they started, some sounded like the just went right in to the pulsing part without the long pipe before it. i have tried myself making imatating queen pipe agaist colonies that had recently swarmed and were full of virgins and you can actually end up getting a symphony of piping started. this is all very fun stuff, can't wait til this season comes, i think i'll try some stuff out there this year, maybe even make a queen pipe song.

 

Are you sure that it is "Zzzoot", and not her sister "Dddingo"??

 

"Since I am a firm believer in the old dishpan beating form of catching swarms"

iddee: First time I've heard of this method, could you give a brief overview?

Barry

 

Here's a few links that explains it pretty well.


http://www.beesource.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=005099#000015

http://www.beesource.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=001013#000005

http://www.beesource.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=004059#000005

 

This is an old tradition in England, although I must admit I have never done it myself. I wonder if the noise of the metallic clatter drowns out anything else the bees might have been listening to, which makes them stop where they are - more or less in confusion?