home page	Metabolic Heat Production At high ambient temperatures, Apis mellifera and Centris pallida bees have shown that they can lower their heat production so that they will not accumulate heat and possibly overheat (Roberts and Harrison,1998).  Since metabolic heat is produced by flight muscles, these bees can reduce heat production by increasing the efficiency of their wing muscles.  Muscle temperature, wingbeat frequency, wingbeat amplitude combined with the elastic energy available, and also the angle of the wing (or aerodynamics) all have an effect on the efficiency of a bee's flight muscles (Roberts and Harrison, 1998).  At low ambient temperatures, bees can start their warm-up process of contracting their flight muscles without moving their wings. This increases the metabolic heat production and combined with the counter current heat exchange a bee can attain and maintain a desired thoracic temperature (Roberts and Harrison, 1998). A bee will use a varying amount of energy to warm up depending on the ambient temperature and the mass of its thorax. The lower the ambient temperature the longer it takes for a bee to warm up and it spends more energy in the process. The higher the mass of a bee's thorax, the greater the amount of energy is required to warm it up (Stone, 1993).
morphology
physiology
thermoregulation
group behaviors
arctic bees
heat tolerance
works cited