David Roubik always wanted to be a tropical biologist. He began studying insects at the age of four and learning Spanish at the age of ten, with the idea that the language might come in handy working in the tropics when he grew up. Today, he is a research entomologist for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Born in Schenectady, NY, Roubik attended high school in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1975, he obtained his Bachelor's degree in Entomology from Oregon State University. He completed his Ph.D. in Entomology in 1979 at the University of Kansas, Lawrence.

Roubik's recent research includes studies of native bees in Bolivia and studies on bees and coffee pollination in Cambodia. He has some 125 scientific papers and 8 books, including Ecology and Natural History of Tropical Bees and Pollination of Cultivated Plants in the Tropics. In addition to his role on the editorial boards of the professional journals Annals of Botany, Insectes Sociaux and Tropics, Roubik is also a member of the Kansas Entomological Society, the International Union for the Study of Social Insects, and the Association for Tropical Biology.

Fred Lehman asks:
Hello, I really enjoyed the show. Are there other hive type of insects which use the same or similar sound methods? Such as wasps? Thank You

Roubik's response:
Some bumble bees do make sounds. The bumble bees are not able to increase the chances that a nest mate will find a PARTICULAR source of food (like a patch of flowers). The honey bees and stingless bees are the true 'champs' of finding a little forage patch in a big sea of potential forage patches-this however, doesn't assure they won't already be occupied by other consumers! Wasps are, as far as we know, unable to communicate much of anything.

James William Gray asks:
To whom it may concern.
How and when is a good time to hunt bees? I found a bee box that my great grandfather made. He would use this box to locate bees or the hive located in trees in the forest. Then he would collect the honey from the tree. I live in the mountains of V.A just out side of Roanoke. I was very interested your research. The bee box that my great grandfather built was made out of a few simple pieces of wood and glass. What is a good formula when it comes to the sugar water?

Roubik's response:
The bee box (for triangulation, or bee-lining) certainly has its history and applications in different places. The best time to use the box is when there are many bees foraging-the morning and early afternoon (at least in most places). If you can't spot a line of bees going in and out of a nest, then you should try to start a line going yourself using the device like your grandfather's box. It works best when the bees feed on a sugar syrup that is just starting to turn thick- which is around 50% sugar. This you can usually make by heating sugar and water mixed in about equal volumes, then adding a bit more sugar. Bees feed when inside the box-getting them into it first is up to you. If they are excited about feeding and bring more bees back from the hive, then you have a line of recruits. If just one bees you've trapped on a flower takes off toward its hive well, you'd better have a clear line of sight to see which direction she's headed.

Shift the box to at least one other place. If you have bees from more than one nest heading in from different directions, the bee-box can help you see where the nest is located. It is where the two lines cross. If the nest is nside of a rather dense forest, or of it is really far away-a few to several miles, there is almost no way you can triangulate to its location-possibilities for error are unimaginably great. Imagine how this is for a bee doing the same thing in reverse to find a flower! If they didn't have smells they could hunt for at the same time, they'd probably never get beyond a distance of a quarter mile or so from their nest.

Adi Andrei asks:

Dear Mr. Roubik,
I study AI/A-Life and I was impressed with the Scientific American Frontiers episode about the bee-lines / bee code. I know from ant studies that ants can keep count of instances of things they encounter and a lot of their behavior is based on counting and derivatives of it (frequency, size, magnitude). I believe the bee code reproduces counts of 'things' that lead to the food place. Where 'things' probably are something similar to wing flips, something related to their internal navigation mechanism and counting. Anyway, in my mind, it would be interesting to know how do bees know how to get back to the hive (since, in your experiment, they are transported in the covered container to the food place)? What navigation mechanism do they use for that? Is it possible that the code counts and symbols have to do with that mechanism?

Roubik's response:
Thanks, Adi. There are suppositions that bees are able to return from inside a black box by flying around until they find something they already know. It can be a spatial landmark or a smell- prominent or not. As to the "counting" of things expressed in the spins and turns, well, your idea is an interesting one. A portrayal of how many open gaps, high or low temperature spots, strong smells, or the other smells of other bees or colonies foraging would make quite a good story to another bee getting ready to go out there to look for food. It will be a true discovery if we could find out if this is going on and see what the mechanisms are.