Insect and biodiversity quiz, 20 questions.

[Gloria]

I love quizzes. Even when getting incorrect answers I learn something new. With a score of 16 out of 20 looks like I need to learn more about insect biodiversity.

Insects are extremely important to ecosystem function providing
nutrient recycling, pollination, seed dispersal, maintenance of plant community composition and structure, food for vertebrates, and maintenance of animal communities via transmission of diseases of large animals and predation and parasitizing of smaller animals (Gullan and Cranston 2005).

Have fun...

Curiosity "Ultimate Insects and Biodiversity Quiz"

[bridget1964]

I only scored a 14! Argghhh!

[dapjwy]

Originally Posted by bridget1964

I only scored a 14! Argghhh!

For some reason, I thought if you got a 14, I'd be lucky to get a 12. I got 13; better than I expected.

I am starting to think there is some truth to your first impulse is usually right! I missed at least two by over thinking things.

[benj1]

Originally Posted by bridget1964

I only scored a 14! Argghhh!

Same for me (quite a bit of smart quessing). They could have done a better job on the answers.

[MrILoveTheAnts]

15 is what I got too. Actually it's 13 but I'm giving myself a point for their misleading questions on honey bees.

"Scientists believe CCD is caused by ...." Well frankly I can name more than one scientist who still believes cell phones are the cause. The answer to this question as they have it is All of the Above. But this is incorrect.

Changes in Transcript Abundance Relating to Colony Collapse disorder in honey bees (Apis mellifera).

Overall, elevated expression of pesticide response genes was not observed. Genes involved in immune response showed no clear trend in expression pattern despite the increased prevalence of viruses and other pathogens in CCD colonies.

When Pesticides are present in the bee body it's clear the immune system went nuts before the bee died! This is inconsistent in bees from CCD hives. So it's unlikely that a pesticide is causing it.


The other question that's erroneous. How many pounds of honey can a beehive produce in a year. My guess was 100lbs because that's how much my hives make on a good year. This is wrong though because the average is 20 to 30 and up to 50 on average. What this seriously boils down to is the hive having a queen with a good laying pattern and ideal conditions year round with the hive nesting in a box filled with drawn out comb. It's really to vague to be answerable.

[suunto]

I was disappointed in scoring 16; I agree with MrILoveTheAnts about there being misleading/over-simplistic questions. For example, the question on cockroaches could imply that they would be native on all continents, and this simply is not true. Also, on flight times for butterflies and moths, there are many species of day-flying moths, including the much-loved squash vine borer.

[dapjwy]

Originally Posted by suunto

I was disappointed in scoring 16; I agree with MrILoveTheAnts about there being misleading/over-simplistic questions. For example, the question on cockroaches could imply that they would be native on all continents, and this simply is not true. Also, on flight times for butterflies and moths, there are many species of day-flying moths, including the much-loved squash vine borer.

I had assumed that cockroaches must've been brought to Antarctica by humans...so I got that wrong. Am I right to assume this? (From your response, suunto, I'm guessing they have been brought to other continents too. I know there are various species of them as well. Any indigenous to Austrailia? Were they brought to the Americas or were they already here?

Even though I knew some moths fly by day, I still answered that "correctly" (according to them)...I guess I realized by then that the test was probably not as factual as it could be. Sometimes I'll take a test by thinking, "what answer do they want?"

I still didn't expect to get 100%--it's hardly my area of expertise. Hmmm.... Maybe you should make your own quiz, suunto! You, too, MrILoveTheAnts!

[jack]

I got a 12!!!!!!!

[Gloria]

For those of you that took the test and gave us your score I thank you.
I also wondered about that 400 pounds of honey for a good hive. Surprisingly if you google "400 pounds honey" there are many sites that say 400 lbs would be a good year for a hive. Seems a lot so I picked 100 lbs thinking even that would be a lot. I know much more about native bees than honey bees.
Mr Ants where would we get reliable information about hive production averages?

[MrILoveTheAnts]

The short answer: is to contact your state apiarist and ask. I have a feeling it varies somewhat from state to state. Your local beekeeping club should be good friends with the person.

The long answer: I'm not sure there currently is a good source average pounds per hive. At least not one that's up to date. It's all a mater of bee population and weather or not they have to draw out new comb to store honey in.

A "Nuc" is only 2 to 5 frames of bees and that's not a lot. You'll get like 3 1lb jars from that if anything at all. They don't really expand beyond this point until the following year. Very weak hive that I wouldn't take honey from other than to free up brood cells. These are not that commonly used though.

A bee package is what's sold to new beekeepers and that's put into the standard 10 frame box but they won't draw out all the comb in the first year. I'd call this a composite beehive because it's 3000-4000 bees that are boxed up and a random queen is placed in a protective box with them all. The protective box is so they don't kill her. After 3 days though the bees don't care weather she's their mom or not so they accept her. Because of this bee packages can be thrown together and almost mass produced. However, 3000 to 4000 bees isn't lot. They won't draw out much more than a single box in the first year. So they don't produce a lot. I'd say at most they'll produce 20 1lb jars. (Picture one, hive up front)

Once they have the comb drawn out though any queen bee can easily bump the hive population to the standard 60,000 to 80,000 by the end of the year. In essence they level the playing field. (Picture one, hive in back)

A Swarm (Picture two) is the bees naturally dividing. Something that was a bee package last year and up will typically swarm once in the spring, sometimes again if the hive is big enough. A swarm is up to 60% of the parent hive. So unlike a bee package, a swarm usually contains more than 30,000 bees. And when hived they'll draw out in three weeks what a bee package takes a year to do. Typically this equates to at least a full 10 frame box and they'll expand up to second box over the summer.

Now two full 10 frame boxes is what a good hive starts the year with. Smaller boxes, called supers, are put on for the bees to draw out specifically to put honey in (Picture three). In the winter time these supers are removed so the bees can heat a smaller space. Here's the trick though, next year you can give them back the same boxes that already have the comb drawn out and they won't need to spend the energy building more comb. This would be the hive that most likely produces 100lbs of honey. I would consider this an average hive because they don't really grow beyond this point. The hive will maintain itself as long as it has a queen, which the workers can readily replace and the beekeepers typically take good care of.

Now it's hard to gage what the average honey production is because CCD is doing a great job taking out all the commercial beekeepers (some of whom have 40,000 hives!) and I know the number of back yard beekeepers in New Jersey alone has jumped from 400 to 2000 in the past few years. That's people who have at least one registered hive on their property. The "Bee-ginners" course typically has a maximum occupancy of 200 people and almost always sells out as far as I know. Not that you need to take the course to become a beekeeper. There are plenty of videos online and plenty of beekeepers who do mentoring.