EL: v7 (First Timers)

ECHIDNAS:    The echidna is a little mammal that has 40,000 receptors in its nose that detect electrical current. It’s able to tell where earthworms are based on what little electricity they give off.

BEES AND FLOWERS:   As bees fly, they lose electrons to the air around them. This gives their tiny little bodies a slightly negative charge.  

BEES AND FLOWERS:   The earth has a slightly positive charge because of lightning strikes hitting the ground around the world and things happening deep in the earth.  This positive charge of the earth transfers up through the ground to plants and up to the plants’ flowers that bees gather nectar from.  

BEES AND FLOWERS:   When bees land on flowers to feed from them, they cancel some of the negative charge of the flower because the bees are positively charged.  For a tiny space of time from seconds to minutes, the flower has less of a negative charge than other flowers around it.

BEES AND FLOWERS:   When a bee hovers over plants covered with flowers landing here and there, it’s reading the electrical fields of the flowers with some of the most sensitive electrical detectors on earth tucked in her ultra-tech antennas. If a flower has a slightly positive charge to it, the bee avoids that flower because its nectar supply has recently been cleaned out by another hungry bee.  If the flower has its characteristic negative charge, then the bee lands and drinks up.  

BEES AND FLOWERS:   Flowers slowly refill themselves.  A flower’s nectar supply is drained by one bee then becomes available for other bees later after it is refilled.  By reading the electrical fields of the plants, the bees can tell which flowers are ready and which flowers will not have nectar.  

BEE WARNINGS:   After making a find, a scout bee comes in the hive and enthusiastically does its boggle dance in the dark to indicate where nectar is. 

BEE WARNINGS:   After encountering danger at a signaled site, surviving bees return to the hive.  When the scout begins to waggle again to send more bees into the danger zone, the surviving bees turn to her and fire off loud buzzes.  She’ll stop her dance when she hears these buzzes then return to her scouting to look for safer locations.

THE ECHIDNA:   The echidna is a little like a spiky ant eater.

BEES AND RAIN:   When it is just about to rain, the electrical fields in the atmosphere change slightly.  Bees don’t like rain.  They detects the electrical changes around them which indicate a storm is coming and they head home!