CHARLOTTE – At a time when honey bees are in serious – and mysterious – decline, Dr. Stanley Schneider and his students are figuring out how the bees talk.
Schneider, a biology professor at UNC Charlotte, describes teaching as a “contagious enthusiasm” that captures students’ imaginations.
Schneider believes taking part in research is the primary way students learn how new knowledge is produced and integrated into an existing body of knowledge. Since he came to UNC Charlotte in 1985, he has worked with 140 undergraduate and graduate students in individual instruction, and many have become productive teachers, researchers and entrepreneurs themselves.1
Schneider is intrigued by social behavior among animals – especially insects, and honey bees in particular – and what it tells us about our own behavior.
He worked with one undergraduate, for example, to study how honey bees communicate.
They revealed previously unreported behavior where worker bees collectively signal to the queen when it is time to swarm and leave the hive. The workers send a “vibration signal” by grabbing another bee – queen or worker – and vibrating its body. Once the queen slows her food intake and egg-laying, the workers issue a general instruction to fly by making contact and feverishly vibrating their wing muscles.
“It’s interesting because it shows that though the queen has a tremendous impact on the colony, she’s not the decision maker,” Schneider said.
“The colony is not a dominance hierarchy and, from a human perspective, this is unusual. Our human society is very dominance hierarchy structured –we have centralized systems of control. But bee colony systems of control are very different – they are totally de-centralized.”
The student who did the work with Schneider became the first author on a published paper, a rare accomplishment for an undergrad.2
Because of his research, Schneider frequently speaks to beekeeper, gardening and birding groups. Given the decline in pollinators, he considers that one of his most important public services.
But “contagious enthusiasm” that infects his students is an even bigger public service – one that won him UNC Charlotte’s 2015 Bank of America Award for Teaching Excellence, the university’s top teaching honor.3
More recently, it’s why Schneider received the UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching.4
1 https://www.northcarolina.edu/board-governors-awards/teaching-awards-2016
2 http://phys.org/news/2007-06-undergraduate-leaderless-honeybee.html
3 http://inside.uncc.edu/news-features/2015-09-19/biology-professor-receives-unc-charlotte%E2%80%99s-top-teaching-honor
4 https://www.northcarolina.edu/board-governors-awards/teaching-awards-2016
Jenni Johnson says
This is so intriguing! I am an elementary teacher at Hunter GT/AIG in Raleigh and we have an Elective called Buzz on Bees! Can’t wait to share these findings! Congratulations on inspiring young minds and on receiving the top honor teaching award at UNC-Ch!