年轻的蜜蜂绝对是个“永动机”，它们似乎总在没日没夜地运送幼虫或是为老蜜蜂提供食物。
据美国《科学》杂志在线新闻报道，它们确实很忙，以致于科学家曾经怀疑它们是否睡觉。然而答案是肯定的，但并没有老蜜蜂那般规律。对老蜜蜂和年轻蜜蜂摄制的录像显示，老蜜蜂会在白天觅食、夜晚休息；而年轻蜜蜂也会在连续不断的工作日中挤出一些打盹的时间。总体而言，这两类蜜蜂的休息时间大致相当，因此小蜜蜂并不会因为错过一夜好梦而遗憾。研究人员在8月1日出版的《实验生物学杂志》（JEB）上报告了这一发现。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
JEB，211, 2408-2416 (2008)，Ada D. Eban-Rothschild and Guy Bloch
Differences in the sleep architecture of forager and young honeybees (Apis mellifera)
Ada D. Eban-Rothschild and Guy Bloch*
Department of Evolution, Systematics, and Ecology, The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 91904, Israel
* Author for correspondence (e-mail: bloch@vms.huji.ac.il )
Accepted 19 May 2008
Honeybee (Apis mellifera) foragers are among the first invertebrates for which sleep behavior has been described. Foragers (typically older than 21 days) have strong circadian rhythms; they are active during the day, and sleep during the night. We explored whether young bees (3 days of age), which are typically active around-the-clock with no circadian rhythms, also exhibit sleep behavior. We combined 24-hour video recordings, detailed behavioral observations, and analyses of response thresholds to a light pulse for individually housed bees in various arousal states. We characterized three sleep stages in foragers on the basis of differences in body posture, bout duration, antennae movements and response threshold. Young bees exhibited sleep behavior consisting of the same three stages as observed in foragers. Sleep was interrupted by brief awakenings, which were as frequent in young bees as in foragers. Beyond these similarities, we found differences in the sleep architecture of young bees and foragers. Young bees passed more frequently between the three sleep stages, and stayed longer in the lightest sleep stage than foragers. These differences in sleep architecture may represent developmental and/or environmentally induced variations in the neuronal network underlying sleep in honeybees. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first evidence for plasticity in sleep behavior in insects.
