How do bees manage windy conditions on New Zealand pōhutukawa flowers

 

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 171 

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

Here is a short note puzzling over something we’ve observed around bees at this time of year (our early summer) as our Christmas tree (pōhutukawa) begins to flower. And pictures to go with it!!!  

Maybe you've seen this too...

Should you watch honey bees in mildly breezy air, hanging around pōhutukawa in bloom you might see something strange. It’s complex work as they steer around the red spiked blooms before selecting a section of flower to negotiate. Here they pause in midair to concentrate on entering the needle tendrils. The entry doesn’t seem hazardous to us but they behave as if it is, holding tight before nipping in and levering down to the nectar. If the breeze suddenly picks up and sways the flower away before she gets her grip on it, something remarkable happens. Stationed like a drone, she doesn’t back off and wait for the wind to settle, she sways around, keeping in precise position above the same spot. This response is so perfectly orchestrated that she can’t be thinking it. An automated flight system, outside her personal volition, must be operating to keep her hovering so perfectly in position while swaying erratically in the wind.

This raises two baffling questions concerning the operation and its speed. What exactly is this automated system responding to? Does it have a visual fix on the flower’s wayward motion and adjust the flight to compensate, or is it direction finding against the wind; shifting co-ordinates with the breeze. Perhaps a combination of the two? But then, what kind of mechanism could work at this speed? We don’t have answers for this but given her size, what we can say is that this is seriously sophisticated neuro-organisation.

All the while she appears to be thinking about where and when to enter her flower. So there also seems to be mindful decision-making going on and this is what I’m probing toward -  Does she have a mind? Well, possibly. How then, does it work? Is it anything like ours? This guidance system seems to lend credence to a machine-mode model, but does it? We too have automated systems, that you can test out for yourself. Which pocket do you put your car keys in? I transfer mine to the left but didn’t realize this until I watched myself doing it. But it’s tricky. Immediately you ‘know’ you’re looking, a switch comes on. Your behaviour becomes directed. You can see this in birds too. A spoonbill circling a wetland checks out safety and suitability while keeping her flight path perfectly balanced between preparing to land and abort.

I don’t have an aerial modulating ability quite so startling as this bee, but such a sophisticated system lends credence to an opposite view. It frees the bee up to continue making judgments about keeping safe and where to gather food, and this seems obvious as she zips between entry points. Sometimes she’ll make a mistake with a barren lode, which indicates she can’t always ‘see’ exactly what she’s scrambling into, but on gaining ‘understanding’, she immediately flares out again.

The quality, nature and savoir faire of her mind and its decision-making process is likely to remain outside our ken, but not our speculation. So are we dealing here with levels of consciousness we are yet to think plausible? And is this the same with other animals?

Finally  here's a local song to cheer all our Covid-risk punters along. We are contained down here in our Te Moana-nui a Kiwa (South Pacific) stronghold but not relaxed or taking ourselves fore granted  with all the grim news coming from your neck of the woods. Kia Kaha to all youse (Stay Strong!!!) and arohanui (love to you all) This song  Hoki Mai - from Willie Mathews quartet featuring Morvin and Kura Simon will cheers you along... (Go Kaiwhaiki!!!)

Environmental artist Frances Jill Studd's blog...  francesjillstudd,blogspot.co.nz

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