Tagging Bumble Bees to Study Their Movements

This video follows graduate student Jeremy Hemberger as he explains his experimental design for a study on the foraging behavior of bumble bees in different habitats.

Are human activities affecting the ability of bumble bees to find enough food? Does resource availability affect bee behaviors, such as foraging time? To answer these questions, Hemberger, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, designed a system for measuring the length of a bumble bee’s foraging trips. He attaches radio-frequency identification tags to several bumble bees in a colony to record individual bees' comings and goings in a variety of environmental conditions. Data from these experiments can provide helpful insights to guide the conservation and restoration of natural habitats in which bumble bees can thrive.

The video provides an example of animal behavior and conservation ecology using bumble bee foraging behavior, using technology to collect data and test a hypothesis, and interpreting data from research studies to guide conservation efforts.

An audio descriptive version of the film is available via our media player.