Are Bee Swarms Changing the Weather with Their Wings?

Here at Betterbee, we stay on top of the latest honey bee science, which helps us give accurate advice on pest management and teach state-of-the-art beekeeping methods. This also means that we read some of the more "out-there" bee research that gets published, like the following that was forwarded to us by a curious beekeeper who wanted our expert opinions on it: 

This graphical abstract from a recent scientific paper seems to imply a bleak future threatened by gangs of dangerous thunderbees. A careful reading of the paper clarifies exactly what the researchers learned. (Original image from Hunting and O’Reilly et al. 2022) Reproduced under CC-BY license.

This story begins with some scientists monitoring atmospheric electric fields at a University of Bristol field research station. One day they recorded a change in the local electric fields. This would have been perfectly normal if a thunderstorm was developing in the area, but the skies were clear. Instead, they discovered that a honey bee swarm flying near the sensor had created the electric field changes!

They assembled a team to do more research, and found that the wing flapping of an airborne bee swarm produced enough electric charge to throw off their atmospheric measurements. It turns out that honey bee swarms are the perfect test subjects for this kind of research because a beekeeper can manage a hive to promote swarming in a predictable location and timeframe. The scientists observed swarms, and found that the denser the bees in the swarm, the greater the charge. Very dense swarms produced larger electrical effects than you would find in a cloud during a thunderstorm! Of course, these electrical effects were only strong in the area immediately around the bees, and most bee swarms are considerably smaller than stormclouds. The scientists then built a mathematical model based on their findings, and proposed different ways that groups of flying insects could produce detectable electric field effects.

The authors extended their findings to other swarming insects, including locusts that sometimes form massive swarms numbering in the billions. In the words of the authors: "Our calculations show that desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria) swarms are capable of exceeding charge densities reported for electrical storms and clouds." Based on their measurements from modest honey bee swarms under controlled conditions, they predicted that a massive locust swarm should have atmospheric effects that looked just like an electrical storm to their sensors. 

So, you don't need to worry about getting zapped by your bees, but you should be impressed that honey bees are still teaching scientists about how our world works.

The research, published in the journal iScience, is publicly available in this article if you'd like to learn more.