Comparative Study Of Microfluidic Transport Mechanisms Of The Short And Long Proboscid Bees

The microfluidic transport technology has been greatly applied and developed in the fields of medical treatment,chemical analysis and bioengineering,which has put forward higher requirements for the research of new microfluidic transport technology.The honey bee,as a typical hymenoptera flower-visiting insect,has a special mouthpart structure and ingests viscous nectar or other high-concentration fluids efficiently.The mouthparts of a honey bee and its drinking mechanism can provide new ideas for the research of microfluidic transport technology and have got widely concerned from scholars.Earlier studies show that both short and long proboscid bees can transport honey with the periodic movement of mouthpart microstructures.By studying the dipping process of bees,it can promote the development of bionic micropump to transport the high-viscosity and high-concentration microfluid.In order to reveal the effect of special structures of mouthparts and drinking modes in terms of feeding efficiency,this paper conducts observation experiments and modeling research on the honey bees(Apis mellifera ligustica)and the neotropical orchid bees(Euglossa imperialis).This article comparatively studies the mouthparts and feeding processes of the two bees by microscope and high-speed camera.The worker honey bees can ingest nectar by the glossal periodic movements and rhythmically erect the tongue microtrichia to regulate the glossal shape.The orchid bees possess a proboscis longer than the body and combine the lapping mode of fluid-feeding with suction feeding.This paper built the feeding model for worker honey bees based on the LLD theory.And the orchid bees feeding model was established by the Newton's second law.The models indicate that the dipping technique employed by workers can contribute to more than seven times the volumetric and energetic intake rate at 35% sucrose solutions compared with the combined mode used by orchid bees.In order to further investigate the influence of temperature and viscosity on the efficiency of worker honey bees dipping nectar,sucrose solutions with different concentrations were prepared,and the temperature of solutions were set at 20?,25?,30?,35? and 40?,respectively.When workers dipped with different concentrations and different temperatures sucrose solutions,the high-speed camera was used to capture the glossal dynamic process to get the dipping frequency of glossa.The polysaccharide(Tylose)was added in sucrose solutions to maintain the viscosity,achieving the dipping frequency of workers with constant viscosity.This paper explores the effects of temperature,concentration and viscosity on workers feeding by the modified dipping model which available for multiple temperatures.The results show that workers dip the warmest and most dilute sucrose solution(20?,25%)1.57 times as fast as dipping the coldest and thickest sucrose solution(40?,45%).This paper indicates that: the research on the high-efficiency nectar ingestion methods of worker honey bees has important theoretical significance for the research of microfluidic transport devices,which will provide new ideas for the new bionic-micropumps.