Anatomy Of A Bumble Bee

Chitin is a nitrogenous polysaccharide insoluble in water alcohol dilute acids and digestive juices. They have a pair of antennae that are attached to their head.

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There are three different types of bumble bees you will encounter.

Anatomy of a bumble bee. With honeybee anatomy every element has a clear well defined purpose to the point of being fine tuned for the differences in roles between the worker drone and queen bees. On the head of the bumble bee there exists a pair of antennae eyes and mandibles. The body also has three sections the head the thorax and the abdomen.

Internally a series of nerve cells extend from the brain to concentrations of nerve tissue in each body segment ganglia constituting a central nervous system. Their body plan consists of a head thorax and abdomen each containing their own specific segments. There is no liquid waste in bees as their small body size makes water conservation a necessity.

The head houses the brain a collection of about 950000 neurons. The anatomy of the bee has a stunning efficiency. Bee anatomy they have a hard outer shell called an exoskeleton.

They have two pairs of wings. They have three pairs of legs used for walking. Oxygen is vacuumed into the body through openings on each segment spiracles by the expansion of the air sacs then the spiracles are closed and air sacs are compressed to force the air into smaller tracheas which become smaller and smaller until individual tubules reach individual cells.

Both queens and workers are female. Its skeleton is on the outside and is made up of hard plates of chitin. Knowing how bees function requires a knowledge of the arrangement of the internal organ systems.

Workers queens and males. Bees breathe through a complex structure of network of tracheas and air sacs. In most cases queens and workers have similar coloration and physical features except that queens tend to be much larger.

Males can differ in coloration from females of the same species. This websites purpose is to encourage interest in the study of bee anatomy. Bumble bees fall under the family apidae their famous cousins being the honey bees and organized into the genus bombus.

A bees body is also covered in lots of fuzzy branched hair which collects pollen and helps regulate body temperature. Bumblebees are large hairy bees and are close relatives of the well known honeybee. As with all insects the bumblebee has what is called an exoskeleton ie.

Most species of bumblebee live in colonies but their colonies are much smaller than the honey bees or wasps who can have up to several thousand individuals the bumblebee colony will only consist of around 50 150 individuals. They have three main body parts. Lets take a closer look at the beautiful makeup of the bee.

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