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When the solar eclipse of 2017 darkened the American sky, humans rejoiced as flamingos huddled, locusts chirped and, according to a new study, bees were silent.
For a study published today in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America, a team of researchers recruited volunteers from 11 sites across the country, fallen in the path of the entire eclipse. On the morning of the eclipse, these volunteers, many of whom were elementary students and their teachers, installed superb microphones over plants known to attract bees, such as sunflowers, thistles and goldenbushes.
Bees vibrate because of the functioning of their anatomy during the flight. Thus, by analyzing the duration of the buzz, the researchers were able to get an idea of the movement of the bees throughout the eclipse. Bees at the 11 research sites were buzzing before and after all – 14 of the 16 pickups picked up at least one buzz every few minutes. But the bees were almost silent as the moon absorbed the sun. The researchers reported a single buzz within three minutes of all 16 microphones.
Because the background noise masked the buzz at some sites, the researchers wanted to focus on data from constant zoom sites before and after all to understand how bees reacted to the total solar eclipse. To do this, the researchers randomly selected two three-minute sequences on each recording station: one from the front set and the other. If the before and after site clips both contained at least three hum, this site was included in the analysis and the researchers listened to the buzzing within 15 minutes before and 15 minutes after the whole. In the end, seven sites qualified, offering researchers a total of 177 buzz to analyze.
They found that the duration of the buzz decreased as the sky darkened, suggesting that bees within range of the microphone were more likely to remain motionless at the height of the eclipse. The researchers write that this makes sense because darkness would spoil the ability of bees to forage. Other animals have been known to behave like the night during an eclipse: the spiders demolish their canvases and the day birds calm down as the nocturnal birds begin to sing.
The caricatures of fourth- and fifth-year volunteers about what they observed is another interesting aspect of these results. The students took only a few liberties in their art, but they were quite good at counting the buzz in the recordings: their number of buzz overlapped with that of the researchers at an impressive rate of 91%.
And it looks like researchers are already preparing for their next opportunity to collect data. "The next solar eclipse will be in Missouri in 2024," they write. "We, bee hunters, including some promising new hires, will be ready."
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