Hive: the place where honeybees store their food, find shelter, and house their young.
Virtual: a simulated (made up) environment based on the real world. Often computers are used to create virtual worlds.
What if you could shrink down to the size of a honey bee? What would life look like?
Hummmmmm is the sound that you hear all day long. It is only broken up by the close buzz, buzz, buzz, of some of your sisters flying by as they head in and out of your home. Life as a honey bee is one filled with important work. Everyone has a job to do. The queen bee lays eggs all day long. Worker bees build the waxy honeycomb cells, fly out to collect pollen and nectar from flowers to feed the youngsters and to make delicious honey.
With this virtual beehive, you get the chance to visit different hives that are part of ongoing research at the ASU Honey Bee laboratory.
Once you enter the beehive there are some basic icons you want to look for while you explore. The most important one is the Location Icon. You can find them located throughout each virtual tour. They are used to move from location to location. On a computer, smart phone or tablet you can click or touch the icon to move to the new location. When using goggles, you place the pointer on top of the Target Icon to move to the new location.
This virtual honey beehive was captured at the Arizona State University Bee Laboratory. Biologists focus their research on these important insects.
As you explore this biome, take notes on what you see. Here are a few questions to get you started.
Try out other virtual 360 tours:
Thank you to the ASU Bee Laboratory, Osman Kaftanoglu, and Cahit Ozturk for all their assistance in capturing the VR 360 views and videos of the honey bees.
Christopher M. Jernigan. (2017, June 13). Be a Bee. ASU - Ask A Biologist. Retrieved September 4, 2024 from https://askabiologist.asu.edu/virtual-beehive
Christopher M. Jernigan. "Be a Bee". ASU - Ask A Biologist. 13 June, 2017. https://askabiologist.asu.edu/virtual-beehive
Christopher M. Jernigan. "Be a Bee". ASU - Ask A Biologist. 13 Jun 2017. ASU - Ask A Biologist, Web. 4 Sep 2024. https://askabiologist.asu.edu/virtual-beehive
What would it be like to be a bee? Image by Gilles San Martin via Wikimedia.
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