title: Energy saving strategies of honeybees in dipping nectar.
abstract: The honeybee's drinking process has generally been simplified because of its high speed and small scale. In this study, we clearly observed the drinking cycle of the Italian honeybee using a specially designed high-speed camera system. We analysed the pattern of glossal hair erection and the movement kinematics of the protracting tongue (glossa). Results showed that the honeybee used two special protraction strategies to save energy. First, the glossal hairs remain adpressed until the end of the protraction, which indicates that the hydraulic resistance is reduced to less than 1/3 of that in the case if the hairs remain erect. Second, the glossa protracts with a specific velocity profile and we quantitatively demonstrated that this moving strategy helps reduce the total energy needed for protraction compared with the typical form of protraction with constant acceleration and deceleration. These findings suggest effective methods to optimise the control policies employed by next-generation microfluidic pumps.
authors.affiliation: Division of Intelligent and Biomechanical Systems, State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Room 3407, Building 9003, Tsinghua University, 100084, Beijing, PR China.
authors.forename: Jianing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Division of Intelligent and Biomechanical Systems, State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Room 3407, Building 9003, Tsinghua University, 100084, Beijing, PR China.|Department of Automotive Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, PR China.
authors.forename: Heng
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Division of Intelligent and Biomechanical Systems, State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Room 3407, Building 9003, Tsinghua University, 100084, Beijing, PR China.
authors.forename: Shaoze
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yan
mesh_terms: D000054:Acceleration; D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D004326:Drinking / Q000502:physiology; D004734:Energy Metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D009055:Mouth / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D009068:Movement; D057048:Plant Nectar / Q000737:chemistry; D014741:Video Recording
chemical_list: D057048:Plant Nectar