Why are bees social insects? Bees and ants are social insects lesson plan on the topic. V. Homework
Lesson on the topic “Bees and ants are social insects”
Target:
- highlight the structural features of the honey bee and ant in connection with their social way of life;
Show the role in nature and significance in human life; prove the need to protect these insects;
- broaden the horizons of students.
Teaching methods : reproductive, search, research, collective decision-making method
Lesson type: learning new material.
Class organization form : educational project.
Project typology : information and research, short-term.
Equipment: multimedia projector, presentation “Bees and ants - social insects, books, handouts, flashcards.
Form of organization of work in the classroom : class-lesson, group, individual.
Lesson content:
I . Organizing time (Mutual greetings between students and teachers, recording absentees, checking students’ readiness for the lesson)
Call stage:
Before I tell you the topic of today's lesson, I will ask you riddles, and you must guess what they are about. we'll talk at the lesson.
1. I smell like summer and pollen.
I'm flying towards the flowers like a bullet.
But I can be very angry.
To the one who climbs into the hive!
2. In a clearing near the fir trees The house is built from needles. He is not visible behind the grass, And there are a million residents there.
II .Preparation for the main stage of assimilation educational material . Activation background knowledge and skills.
- In previous lessons, we began to study the most numerous type of animals - the Arthropod type.What signs of this type are observed in bees and ants? (I listen to the children’s answers).
Jointed limbs
Presence of chitinous cover.
To what class would you classify these animals?
(to the class Insects).
As you already understood, the heroes of our lesson will bebees and ants.
Due to the fact that there is a lot of information about these insects, we will study this topic as part of the project.
Project goals:
Study the systematic position of the honey bee and ant;
study the structure of the honey bee;
study polymorphism in the hive and anthill; find signs of similarities and differences;
study the importance of bees and ants in nature and human life; insect protection;
study the history of beekeeping;
draw a conclusion why bees and ants are classified as social animals;
present our project.
III .Stages of work on the project.
1. 3 groups of students are formed:
Each group receives an instruction card with a plan for studying the topic area printed on it. Answer sheets.
Today's lesson will work in groups
“Theorists”, 2 “Beekeepers”, 3 “Biologists”.
We ask group participants to remember the rules of working in a group and respect the time.
Group work is allotted 20 minutes, speaker time is 3-4 minutes.
Please start by reading the instruction sheet.
I wish you good luck.
Instructional card "THEORETICS"
Target: study the systematic position of the honey bee and ant, find out their significance in nature and human life, and propose measures for the protection of insects.
1. Systematic position of the bee and ant.
2. External structure of a bee:
Take a closer look at the structure of a worker bee in Fig. 1 ( reference material) and answer the questions?
What sections is the bee's body divided into?
How many pairs of wings?
How many pairs of legs?
What sense organs are different on a bee's head?
Features in the structure of the hind legs. What do you think they are for?
3. What is the importance of bees and ants in nature and human life.
4. Suggest measures to protect insects.
5. Conclude why bees and ants are called social insects?
Instructional card "Beekeepers"
Target: study the history of beekeeping.
1. Where could we find out information that the bee has become a human pet since time immemorial?
3. What beekeeping products were used to pay tribute, duties and taxes?
4. What did the ancient Slavs use instead of sugar, and what for light?
5. What was the name of ancient beekeeping?
6. What did the Ukrainian landowner Pyotr Ivanovich Prokopovich invent in 1814?
7.Draw a conclusion that reflects the importance of bees in nature and human life.
Instructional card "Biologists"
Target: study polymorphism in the hive and anthill; find signs of similarities and differences.
Theoretical part.
1. Polymorphism of the bee colony.
2. Polymorphism of the ant family.
3. What is swarming called? What is its biological role?
Practical part.
Using the textbook material pp. 135-136 and reference material, fill out the table"Polymorphism of bees and ants"
Signs of comparison.
Polymorphism of bees and ants
Uterus
bees
Uterus
ant
Drone
Male ant
worker bee
Worker ants
1. Body dimensions.
l = 18-20 mmm = 0.25 g
Up to 50 mm
l = 15-16 mmm = 0.2 g
Up to 50 mm
l = 12-14 mmm = 0.1 g
2 mm
2. Number of individuals in the family.
1
2 or more
Some
dozens
From several tens to several hundred
70 000
From several tens to a million
3. Lifespan.
Up to 5 years
12-20 years
1 season
Several days, weeks
1 season
Up to 3 years
4. Structural features.
Large bee, long pointed abdomen; associated with its reproductive function
similar to workers, but differ from them in the structure of the chest and more large sizes. Have wings that bite themselves off after fertilization
medium-sized bee with very large eyes , touching at the back of the head,abdomen rounded
Develop from unfertilized eggs and have wings
on hind legsbaskets , on the abdomen there are speculums, an expansion of the esophagus - a honeypot; at the end of the abdomensting
Females with an underdeveloped reproductive system , They have no wings, a simplified chest structure, eyes smaller than those of females, or absent
5. Functions performed.
Pairing
and laying eggs
Mating
And laying eggs
Fertilization
females
Fertilization of the female
Cleaning cells, feeding the queen and larvae, building honeycombs, scouting, collecting food, protecting the hive.
Taking care of the family (Guards, “nannies”, cleaning the nest, etc.)
Answer the questions?
1. Give the concept of polymorphism?
2. Conclude what polymorphism is in bees and ants and what this is connected with.
2. Search for information.
Students are asked to find answers to the questions indicated on the instruction card. Students work with a textbook and additional literature.
3. Information processing .
Students in groups fill out answer cards, prepare a speech - defending a project, and select a speaker from their group.
4. Project protection.
Representatives of each group present their work, talk about their achievements, and draw conclusions:
1. The bee and the products of its vital activity are of great practical importance. But the most great importance The activity of bees is manifested in the pollination of plants.
2. A bee family consists of a queen, drones and worker bees. Responsibilities are distributed between them in the family.
4. The structural features of a worker bee are related to its “professional” responsibilities.
5. The bee and the ant are “social” insects with complex instinctive behavior, in their caring care for the “baby”, in the appropriateness of the division of labor between family members, in their amazing art of construction
IV . Homework.
Tasks to choose from:
Prepare reports about the silkworm
Silk production
Insects listed in the Red Book.
V . Lesson summary and reflection.
You guys did a great job.
I'm making my comment. And I propose to briefly answer the questions
What's your mood?
Please continue the sentence
It was interesting to me…
Today we figured it out...
I realized today that...
It was difficult for me...
Tomorrow I want in class...
Social insects. Most insects lead a solitary lifestyle. However, there are also social insects. These include termites, bumblebees, wasps, ants, and bees. The community of these insects is one large extended family. There are separate groups in the family that perform different functions: they collect food, share it with each other, care for the larvae, and guard the nest.
Most The ants living in the anthill (Fig. 104) are composed of wingless workers - these are sterile females. Their number sometimes reaches a million. Besides them, the queen lives in the anthill. She also doesn't have wings. She breaks them off after the mating flight. She lays eggs all her life, and all the care for the anthill lies with the working ants. They obtain food, repair and clean the anthill, feed the larvae and the queen, and defend the anthill in case of attack by enemies.
Once a year, at the beginning of summer, winged females and males appear in the anthill from pupae and set off on a mating flight. After mating, the males die, and the females shed their wings and establish a new anthill. Most ants are predators. Some feed on the sweet secretions of aphids. To do this, ants protect, “graze” these insects feeding on plants, and sometimes build shelters for them.
Rice. 104. Cross section of an anthill: 1 - chambers with eggs; 2 - chambers with larvae: 3 - chambers with pupae
Other types of ants breed mushrooms in underground chambers to feed on them, bringing in crushed plant leaves. There are herbivorous ants. Ants communicate by touching each other with their antennae, legs and heads. In addition, they have a “chemical language” - they secrete special substances with which they mark their paths. Ants recognize relatives and enemies by smell.
The honey bee is a social insect. A large family of bees numbers up to 100 thousand individuals that live in a hive (Fig. 105, A). In a hive, most insects are worker bees. These are sterile females in which a modified ovipositor serves as a sting. They clean the hive, collect nectar, care for the queen and larvae, and protect the hive from enemies. They live only one season (about a year). In a bee family, the main bee is the queen bee, who lays up to 2000 eggs per day. She lives for about five years. In the spring, in May - June, a new queen and several dozen males, called drones, appear in the bee colony from the pupae: they do not take any part in the work, and their main task is to fertilize the queen. The old female leaves the hive with some of the worker bees - swarming occurs. Beekeepers collect the swarm and place it in a new hive. In the fall, worker bees drive the remaining drones out of the hive and they die.
Rice. 105. Bees: A - Bee hive; B - diagram of the “dance” of bees
All care of the hive lies with the worker bees: growing up, each worker bee changes several “professions”. First, they build honeycombs, clean the cells, feed the larvae, take food from arriving bees and distribute it in the hive, ventilate the hive, guard it and, finally, begin to fly out of the hive for nectar. Bees communicate with each other, like ants, through touch and secretions.
However, only bees have a “dance language”. With the help of special body movements and movements, one bee can tell others where nectar-rich bees are located. flowering plants(Fig. 105, B). A scout bee “dances” in the hive on the honeycomb.
The complex behavior of social insects is called instinctive, because instinct is a set of innate forms of behavior, fixed hereditarily and characteristic of a certain species of animal. The behavior of social insects is so complex that it leads many people to believe that they are intelligent. However, these actions of animals are instinctive and unconscious.
Humans have been breeding honey bees for a long time. It is spread all over to the globe. A person receives wax, honey, various medications(propolis, bee venom, bee jelly).
On the underside of the worker bee's abdomen there are special glands that secrete wax. Bees use it to build honeycombs. On the hind legs of bees there are areas surrounded by long chitinous hairs - baskets. Bees crawl on flowers, and pollen gets on the hairs of their bodies. Then the bee cleans the pollen into the basket using special brushes on its legs. Soon a lump of pollen forms there - pollen, which the bee transfers to the hive. Bee bread - pollen soaked in honey - serves as a reserve of protein food for the bee colony.
Worker bees have a peculiar extension of the esophagus - a honey goiter. From the nectar collected from flowers, which has passed through the honey sac, the main food supply of the bee colony is formed - honey. The cells are filled with honey and the bees cover them with a thin wax layer. In a year you can get up to 100 kg of honey from one bee colony.
Although people have been raising bees for a long time, collapsible frame hives were invented relatively recently - in 1814. Russian beekeeper P.I. Prokopovich. Before this, in order to extract honey from a bee’s nest, which, as a rule, was located in a hollowed-out tree log, it was necessary to break the honeycomb, that is, to ruin the bee family. The surviving swarm of bees can live independently, without human help. This indicates that bees are not yet fully domesticated.
Silkworm. There are other insects that are beneficial to humans. These are silkworms. This the only insect, not found in nature in the wild (Fig. 106). Its females even “forgot how” to fly. An adult insect is a thick butterfly with whitish wings with a span of up to 6 cm. The caterpillars of this silkworm eat only mulberry or mulberry leaves.
Rice. 106. Stages of development of the silkworm: 1 - female laying eggs; 2 - caterpillar; 3 - cocoon formation; 5 - pupae in a cocoon
Scientists suggest that in the wild, the ancestor of the silkworm lived in the foothills of the Himalayas. Silkworms began to be bred in China around 3000 BC. e. Nowadays, this insect is completely domesticated. Now it is bred in China, Japan, Indochina, Southern Europe, South America, Central Asia and the Caucasus - where the mulberry tree grows. There are several dozen breeds of silkworms, varying in length, strength and color of the silk thread they produce.
Female silkworms lay eggs (each - up to 600 eggs), which are called grena. Caterpillars emerge from them. These caterpillars are kept in special rooms on food shelves and fed with mulberry leaves. During pupation, each caterpillar spins a cocoon for three days from a very thin thread, the length of which reaches 1500 m.
The silk thread is secreted by a special silk gland located on the lower lip of the caterpillar.
Sericulture breeders collect the finished cocoons, treat them with hot steam, and then use special machines to unwind the silk threads. Some of the cocoons are left for breeding butterflies.
Silk is used in light industry to produce fabrics, in medicine (it is used to make threads for stitching wounds) and in aviation.
Insect protection. A person greatly influences environment(plows up virgin steppes, cuts down forests, uses pesticides). Therefore, the numbers of many animal species, including insects, are declining. Some species are on the verge of extinction. Due to this rare species insects are taken under oxpairy. Red Books have been created, which contain information about specially protected rare animals (Fig. 107), the reasons for their plight and protection measures. Among the insects of our country listed in the Red Book, there is the steppe racket - a large steppe grasshopper that lives in the steppes in southern Russia. The distribution area of this grasshopper has decreased due to the plowing of virgin steppes. Of the beetles, several species of large predatory beetles - ground beetles - have found their way onto the pages of the Red Book. On South Far East The largest beetle in Russia is protected - the relic woodcutter, whose body length reaches 10.8 cm, the length of the larvae up to 17 cm. It was included in the pages of the Red Book in connection with the cutting down of old trees, in the wood of which its larvae develop.
Rice. 107. Rare and protected insects: 1 - steppe racket; 2 - Apollo; 3 - Far Eastern relic woodcutter; 4 - Caucasian ground beetle; 5 - wall bumblebee; 6 - mother of pearl zenobia
Many species of bumblebees are also listed in the Red Book, for example the variable bumblebee and the steppe bumblebee. Among the butterflies listed in the Red Book are Apollo, mpemosina, and mother-of-pearl zenobia. They are protected by the Law “On the Protection of Wildlife”.
The role of insects in natural communities is enormous. Insects are the most important pollinators of flowering plants. They serve as food for various invertebrates (spiders, centipedes), fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and animals, even some insectivorous plants (sundews). Among the insects there are many orderlies who help process minerals organic remains of plants and animals. Soil insects and their larvae increase soil fertility by mixing and fertilizing it with their excrement. The role of insects in the cycle of substances in nature is great.
Exercises based on the material covered
- What features of behavior and lifestyle are characteristic of the inhabitants of the anthill?
- Describe the composition of the bee colony and the functions of each group of bees.
- Why are ants and bees classified as social insects? Explain their meaning in nature and in human life.
- On the basis of what characteristics are the silkworm classified as domestic animals? What is the value in economic activity does this insect have a person?
Social and domesticated insects
Most insects lead a solitary lifestyle. However, there is alsosocial insects . These includetermites, bumblebees, wasps, bees, ants . The community of these insects is one large extended family. Social insects share food with each other, jointly care for larvae, and guard the nest.
Bees and ants are social insects
Bees.Social insects includehoney bee . A large family of bees numbers up to 100 thousand individuals that live in the hive. In a hive, most insects areworkers bees. These are infertile females in which a modified ovipositor servessting . They clean the hive, collect nectar, care for the queen and larvae, and protect the hive from enemies. They live for one warm season (less than a year). In a bee family, the main bee isuterus which lays eggs - up to 2000 per day. The queen bee is larger than the worker bees. She lives for about five years. In the spring, in May - June, a new queen and several dozen males appear from the pupae in the bee colony, which are calleddrones: They do not take any part in the work, and their main task is fertilization of the uterus. In the fall, worker bees drive the remaining drones out of the hive and they die.
All care for the hive lies with the worker bees: growing up, each worker bee changes several “professions”. She builds honeycombs, cleans the cells, feeds the larvae, takes food from arriving bees and distributes it in the hive, ventilates the hive, guards it and, finally, begins to fly out of the hive for nectar. Bees communicate with each other in the same way as ants - through touch and secreted substances.
However, only bees have a “dance language”. With the help of special body movements and movements, one bee can tell others where nectar-rich flowering plants are located. A scout bee "dances" in the hive on the honeycomb.
On the underside of the worker bee's abdomen there are special glands that secretewax . Bees, thanks to complex instincts, build from ithoneycomb . On the hind legs of bees there are areas surrounded by long chitinous hairs - baskets. Bees crawl on flowers, and pollen falls on the hairs of the insect's body. Then the bee cleans the pollen into the basket using special brushes on its legs. Soon a lump of pollen forms there - pollen, which the bee transfers to the hive.Perga - pollen soaked in honey serves as a reserve of protein food for the bee colony.
Worker bees have a peculiar expansion of the esophagus -honey goiter . The main supply of food for the bee colony is formed from the nectar collected from flowers, which has passed through the honey sac.honey . The cells are filled with honey and the bees cover them with a thin wax layer. In a year you can get up to 100 kg of honey from one bee colony.
Although people have been raising bees for a long time, collapsible frame hives were invented relatively recently - in 1814 by the Ukrainian beekeeper P. I. Prokopovich. Before this, in order to extract honey from a bee’s nest, which, as a rule, was located in a hollowed-out tree log, it was necessary to break the honeycomb, that is, to ruin the bee family. The surviving swarm of bees can live independently, without human help. This indicates that bees are not yet fully domesticated.
Ants- social hymenoptera. They do not have a sting, but they have a poisonous gland, thanks to which they can protect themselves from enemies. Red forest ants bring great benefits to the forest. The ants of one anthill eat tens of thousands of insects per day and protect a forest covering an area of 0.2 hectares from pests. They live in families.
The anthill consists of above-ground and underground parts. Most of the ants living in the anthill are wingless workers - these are sterile females. Their number sometimes reaches a million. Besides them, the queen lives in the anthill. She also doesn't have wings. She breaks them off after the mating flight. She lays eggs all her life, and all the care for the anthill lies with the working ants. They obtain food, repair and clean the anthill, feed the larvae and the queen, and defend the anthill in case of attack by enemies. Once a year, at the beginning of summer, winged females and males appear in the anthill from pupae and set off on a mating flight. After mating, the males die, and the females shed their wings and establish a new anthill. They can also end up in the anthill in which they developed.
Most ants are predators. Some feed on the sweet secretions of aphids. For this purpose, ants protect, “graze”these insects feed on plants, and sometimes shelters are built for them. Other types of ants breed mushrooms in underground chambers for their food, bringing crushed plant leaves for this. There are herbivorous ants.
Ants communicate by touching each other with their antennae, legs and heads. In addition, they have a “chemical language” - they secrete special substances with which they mark their paths. Ants recognize relatives and enemies by smell.
WITH false behavior of social insects is called instinctive because instinct - a set of innate aspects of behavior, fixed hereditarily and characteristic of a certain species of animal. The behavior of bees, ants and some other animals is so surprising and complex that it leads many people to believe that it is intelligent. However, these actions of animals are instinctive and unconscious.
Domesticated insects
There is only one thing completelydomesticated insect , not found in nature in the wild, -silkworm ; females of this species have even “forgot how” to fly. An adult insect is a thick butterfly with whitish wings with a span of up to 6 cm. The caterpillars of this silkworm eat only mulberry or mulberry leaves.
Scientists suggest that in the wild, the ancestor of the silkworm lived in the foothills of the Himalayas. The butterfly was domesticated in China around 3 thousand years BC. e. Nowadays, this insect is completely domesticated. It is grown in China, Japan, the countries of Indochina, Southern Europe, South America, Central Asia and the Caucasus - where the mulberry tree can grow. There are several dozen breeds of silkworms, varying in length, strength and color of the silk thread they produce.
Female silkworms lay eggs (each female - up to 600 eggs), which are calledGreena . Caterpillars emerge from them. These caterpillars are fed mulberry leaves in special rooms on feeding shelves. During pupation, each caterpillar howls for three days.
