honeybee project reflection
Honeybee's are important to the world because without them, all of the most important crops would die from a lack of pollination. Honeybee's are critical to crop and plant growth, without their pollination the plants die! We should be concerned about honeybee's because people are killing them off with pesticides and other methods. People don't understand that they are ruining their own chances for plant growth. If honeybee's didn't exist, our plants would have a minimal chance to survive and or thrive.
For my project I chose to focus on the roles that honeybee's play in their hives. What I learned about this topic was that honeybee's are genetically different, and each bee has a genetic set of DNA that makes them perfectly suited for their position. Also, I learned about how the queen bee is the leader of the hive, and how the rest of the bees in the hive serve her. For exhibition, I made an informative poster about the honeybee's different roles in the hive. This was a large sign, that we ended up hanging on the wall. It was originally supposed to go outside by the actual hives, but time constraints kept this from being possible. I was most proud of the final sign that came out, the writing was very professional, and colleen helped me make it beautiful with powerpoint. I wish that I could have had more time to make my sign waterproof so that it could be by the bee hives. That way it could be a more permanent addition to the future honeybee class projects.
For my project I chose to focus on the roles that honeybee's play in their hives. What I learned about this topic was that honeybee's are genetically different, and each bee has a genetic set of DNA that makes them perfectly suited for their position. Also, I learned about how the queen bee is the leader of the hive, and how the rest of the bees in the hive serve her. For exhibition, I made an informative poster about the honeybee's different roles in the hive. This was a large sign, that we ended up hanging on the wall. It was originally supposed to go outside by the actual hives, but time constraints kept this from being possible. I was most proud of the final sign that came out, the writing was very professional, and colleen helped me make it beautiful with powerpoint. I wish that I could have had more time to make my sign waterproof so that it could be by the bee hives. That way it could be a more permanent addition to the future honeybee class projects.
Honeybee research notes
TJ Rifkin
4-23-15
Biology
Biology Honeybee Notes
Hadley, Debbie. "Honey Bees - Roles Within the Honey Bee Colony." N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
Summary:
This article is a complete summary of the roles that all honey bees carry out within their own hives. The article speaks to the importance of each role and how a single colony can collapse due to the absence of one single role. Honeybee roles include the queen, drones, workers, and foragers. Another thing this article tells us about is the short life span that a honeybee has. Overall this article is a full overview of a honeybee hives roles and the importance that each carries.
Evaluation:
“For the remainder of their short lives, workers keep busy - thus the expression "busy bees."
“When threatened, the workers defend the colony”
“Each member of the community fulfills a need that serves the group.”
#2
"Awesome Roles of Bees in a Hive." Benefits-of-Honey.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
Summary:
This article shows us the roles that each honeybee carries in their colony/hive. Other than the roles it explains the importance of all the roles and how they reproduce to fulfill the roles of those who pass away. Overall this sheds a positive light on the life of a honeybee and their caste in their individual society.
Evaluation:
“Worker bees that are about 12 days old are mature enough to begin secreting and producing beeswax , the material for the construction of comb.”
“When the worker bees are a little older, they become in charge of removing dead bees and disposal of the corpses to a place as far from the hive as possible.”
Scientific Article:
"How It Works: Honeybee Society." Popular Science. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
This scientific article summarizes the exact reasons why each honeybee hold the role that it does. It also describes the process in which each bee is chosen for their role. The actual reason that a honeybee is put in the role that they are is because they are literally more genetically prone to fulfilling that job well. The honeybee’s DNA actually decides what roles they fulfill in the hive, this is new information that has surfaced in the last year. Originally it was thought that honeybee roles were random. This new information creates interesting questions as to human application for genetic advancements.
Evaluation:
“Tags: Enzymes such as methyltransferase help transfer epigenetic tags to DNA. The mechanism for inducing epigenetic changes in bees is not well understood, but scientists suspect that pheromones exuded by the forager bees might play a role.
Genes: Epigenetic tags, such as methyl groups, determine how much of a gene is expressed or whether the gene is expressed at all.
Proteins: The tags also dictate how pieces of genes are assembled into an mRNA transcript, which eventually determines the type of protein made from that gene. A protein produced in a nurse bee will look different and serve a different function than one produced in a forager.”
4-23-15
Biology
Biology Honeybee Notes
Hadley, Debbie. "Honey Bees - Roles Within the Honey Bee Colony." N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
Summary:
This article is a complete summary of the roles that all honey bees carry out within their own hives. The article speaks to the importance of each role and how a single colony can collapse due to the absence of one single role. Honeybee roles include the queen, drones, workers, and foragers. Another thing this article tells us about is the short life span that a honeybee has. Overall this article is a full overview of a honeybee hives roles and the importance that each carries.
Evaluation:
- Some interesting information that I learned from this article is that a honeybee life span is usually no longer than 60 days! this kind of shocked me considering that is only two months for a huge human lifespan. With this information I now understand that honeybee reproduction is a key process to keep a hive up and running. In fact, without the hive exponentially, the hive will dissipate in less than a year. If a honeybee’s life goes over around 65 days, they become useless to the hive, and therefore while they are still living, they are of no benefit to the bee society.
- This gave me insight to show me that I can input how the short lifespan affects the reproduction of the bees to fill the roles of the deceased. Also, this article made me think about what is done with the corpses of the bees that pass away in the hive, is there any sort of funeral? Where are the bodies taken? Once a new bee is born how long does it take until it can fill its role in the hive?
“For the remainder of their short lives, workers keep busy - thus the expression "busy bees."
“When threatened, the workers defend the colony”
“Each member of the community fulfills a need that serves the group.”
#2
"Awesome Roles of Bees in a Hive." Benefits-of-Honey.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
Summary:
This article shows us the roles that each honeybee carries in their colony/hive. Other than the roles it explains the importance of all the roles and how they reproduce to fulfill the roles of those who pass away. Overall this sheds a positive light on the life of a honeybee and their caste in their individual society.
Evaluation:
- This connects to my previous research because it is about the same topic, honeybee roles in a hive. It shows details about the same thing as the last article that I read. It tells us all about how each role carries a specific tendency or habitual routine that allows it to fill its role perfectly.
- This had interesting information about the builders of the hive that I didn’t hear about from my previous article. They make the hove together with wax like flakes. They have a special ability to produce the materials needed to make the hive and or honeycomb, no other bee in the hive possesses this ability but the builder bees. If the builder bees were to die off in the honeybee ecosystem, then the whole hive would suffer. Their hive would not be replenished with new materials and they would die prematurely.
“Worker bees that are about 12 days old are mature enough to begin secreting and producing beeswax , the material for the construction of comb.”
“When the worker bees are a little older, they become in charge of removing dead bees and disposal of the corpses to a place as far from the hive as possible.”
Scientific Article:
"How It Works: Honeybee Society." Popular Science. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
This scientific article summarizes the exact reasons why each honeybee hold the role that it does. It also describes the process in which each bee is chosen for their role. The actual reason that a honeybee is put in the role that they are is because they are literally more genetically prone to fulfilling that job well. The honeybee’s DNA actually decides what roles they fulfill in the hive, this is new information that has surfaced in the last year. Originally it was thought that honeybee roles were random. This new information creates interesting questions as to human application for genetic advancements.
Evaluation:
- This provides new insight for my project because before this I had not known that honey bees DNA leads to their role in the hive. I had no idea that this was the case so it pretty much transforms my project. Now that I have this new knowledge that it is in fact not a random role selection, I can incorporate the actual genetic advantages in my final diorama. Now that we know this I can shed this light to the public in my final project.
- The interesting information that I learned from this article was that a honey bees DNA is the key to their role in the hive. This is interesting because previously I had thought that the honeybee role selection was random, but now I realize that the bees are made specifically for their role. I am glad that this information came across my research because now my project can incorporate this new information.
“Tags: Enzymes such as methyltransferase help transfer epigenetic tags to DNA. The mechanism for inducing epigenetic changes in bees is not well understood, but scientists suspect that pheromones exuded by the forager bees might play a role.
Genes: Epigenetic tags, such as methyl groups, determine how much of a gene is expressed or whether the gene is expressed at all.
Proteins: The tags also dictate how pieces of genes are assembled into an mRNA transcript, which eventually determines the type of protein made from that gene. A protein produced in a nurse bee will look different and serve a different function than one produced in a forager.”
dissection lab response
I chose to dissect the shark because I thought that it would be the least gross thing to deal with.Throughout the dissection I learned that the shark is very similar to the human as far as the heart and bran go. Also I learned that a shark only has one hole for everything. Throughout this dissection I learned that I am even more squeamish than I already knew I was. I threw up on the first day and from there on I never came back in the room. I ended up doing the virtual dissection in the end. I had to be strong even through the virtual dissection to keep me from throwing up.
csi lab response paragraphs
In our CSI project, we were given the task and role of a real life crime scene investigator, and each group of two was assigned 1 of 3 crime scene that Colleen had created. In the beginning we learned about exoneration, and how DNA evidence has freed many innocent people. DNA evidence has made our justice system much more advanced and accurate. It helps convict people of free them, therefore it is a very useful tool in our modern criminal justice system.
During our project we learned about several areas of forensic science, a few examples of these sciences include
Blood spatter, wound analysis, trajectory of a bullet, blood typing, toxicology, and DNA analysis. Throughout the project we conducted several labs using these forensic sciences, for example in my crime scene we used iodine fuming to find fingerprints on bottles in the victims kitchen. Each one of these forensic techniques helped us determine our victims killer/killers. Bullet trajectory showed us instantly that it was not a suicide, and toxicology showed us that he was poisoned prior to him being shot. All of these sciences are tremendously helpful in crime scene analysis.
The most interesting forensic science to me was without a doubt the DNA analysis, this was my favorite because the idea of replicating DNA was astonishing to me. It was very cool to me that we could replicate such a small part of human beings billions of times. In this project I think that I performed well in the area of my evidence reports. I was very timely with them and always got them done on schedule. I was also good at keeping my notes and handouts organized in my binder. The only thing I wish that I could have done better would have been my ability to stay in class. I got distracted sometimes and left the room when I shouldn't have. I still got everything done well but I could have made it easier on Colleen. Also my partner left in the first week of the project and got back in the last two days which was also very hard to work with.
During our project we learned about several areas of forensic science, a few examples of these sciences include
Blood spatter, wound analysis, trajectory of a bullet, blood typing, toxicology, and DNA analysis. Throughout the project we conducted several labs using these forensic sciences, for example in my crime scene we used iodine fuming to find fingerprints on bottles in the victims kitchen. Each one of these forensic techniques helped us determine our victims killer/killers. Bullet trajectory showed us instantly that it was not a suicide, and toxicology showed us that he was poisoned prior to him being shot. All of these sciences are tremendously helpful in crime scene analysis.
The most interesting forensic science to me was without a doubt the DNA analysis, this was my favorite because the idea of replicating DNA was astonishing to me. It was very cool to me that we could replicate such a small part of human beings billions of times. In this project I think that I performed well in the area of my evidence reports. I was very timely with them and always got them done on schedule. I was also good at keeping my notes and handouts organized in my binder. The only thing I wish that I could have done better would have been my ability to stay in class. I got distracted sometimes and left the room when I shouldn't have. I still got everything done well but I could have made it easier on Colleen. Also my partner left in the first week of the project and got back in the last two days which was also very hard to work with.