Bees detection of electric fields

Max_B

Member
Two studies from last year reveal that bees not only detect electric fields but also learn to discriminate them...

1) Bumblebees detect electric fields around plants and learn to use them to decide whether or not to visit flowers.

http://lewiscountybeekeepers.org/ya...ience-2013-Clarke-science1230883.58215802.pdf

2) Bees emit constant and modulated electric fields when flying, landing, walking and during the waggle dance -
the figure-of-eight-shaped circuit performed by foragers upon their return to the nest to communicate the location of rewarding flowers to nest mates. The sequence of wing beats and abdomen movements performed by waggle dancers generates a specific modulated electric field composed of pulses of several hundred volts which the team suggests evokes a behavioral response in a social context.

http://www.ontariobee.com/sites/ontariobee.com/files/Proc. R. Soc. B-2013-Greggers-.pdf
 
I remember reading on one of these. Apparently most pollinating insects are positively charged and most flowers are negatively charged and the electric field pattern for the plant is species specific. Amazing stuff.
 
I remember reading on one of these. Apparently most pollinating insects are positively charged and most flowers are negatively charged and the electric field pattern for the plant is species specific. Amazing stuff.

Aye, the global electric circuit, it's fab to think that flowers and their pollinators have taken advantage of it.

I was struck by the second paper too, which suggests the 'waggle dance' also communicates food source location to other bees in the nest by electric fields, in addition to sound and air flows.

At present they seem to think that the electric field is sensed by mechanically deflecting their antennae/sensilla, but it's not very clear yet whether that's the only process.
 
It is not far fetched to think that our own physiology is synchronised with the Earths background frequency. Indeed the baseline frequency is around about that of alpha brain waves of an alert relaxed state. The Earth is connected to the sun via magnetic flux tubes pumping electricity into the poles. Then in the plasma cosmology view the Sun is the focus of galactic currents along the spiral arms, and so on. Matter itself seems nothing but a bundle of charges. All connected in a cosmic circuit right down to the bio electric organisms.

And of course consciousness is mediated by patterns of electrical discharge.
 
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