UNLV researcher studies the secret lives of honeybees

UNLV researcher studies the secret lives of honeybees:

"The genome project places the European honeybee alongside only two other insects that have had their genetic blueprint mapped, the mosquito and the fruit fly.

Honeybees originated in Africa, Asia or the Middle East about 300 million years ago.

From there, humans carried them worldwide because of their ability to make honey, and they now live on every continent but Antarctica.

Part of that adaptability can be attributed to the honeybee's resistance to different, and extreme, environments.

Honeybees, it turns out, have the same muscle tissue and heat-shock proteins as people, although they use them slightly differently.

When humans are subject to extremely hot temperatures, the body starts producing more heat-shock proteins, which absorb some of that stress.

'I guarantee you, when you get into a hot car, you have a heat-shock response, and so do I,' Elekonich said.

But honeybees can survive temperatures up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit without producing significant amounts of those proteins.

Instead, the heat-shock proteins are produced mostly while the bees are in flight."