Shining Fluorescent Light On Bee Sperm Could Help Explain Colony Survival TC_Africa: SouthAfrica
, the first of its kind, by the European Commission estimated that some countries were losing as many as a third of their colonies every year.
Researchers around the world are applying the latest technologies to this project. One technique is computer-aided sperm analysis. This assesses sperm function and its structural parameters. At the comparative spermatology group at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa, we have a particular interest in the structure and movement of insect sperm. We've nowthe use of fluorescent microscopy in combination with computer-aided sperm analysis for what we believe are superior results.
There is some urgency to understanding the sperm quality of the honey bee drones because of how long it has to last. Bee queens have limited mating flights. They fly to what's known as a drone congregation area and mate with multiple drones before heading back to the colony. The queensome six million sperm in a specialised sac, the spermatheca, for as long as seven years. Any one queen bee can potentially have around 1.7 million offspring.
This is where form and function meet. Honey bee sperm has a very long tail, about 225 micrometres in length. It dwarfs the tails of the sperm of larger vertebrates, which are typically in the 40-75 µm range.
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