Bees are everywhere in the summer, and bees’ habitats make interesting stories for researchers to study.

Zachary Huang, associate professor in the Department of Entomology at MSU, has studied bees for more than 20 years. His job consists of three parts: extension, research and teaching. 

Huang said he started studying bees when he was in a PhD program in 1983. He received a Wang Fellowship scholarship to study in Canada, and then moved to the U.S. for further study.

While Huang chose to go into research for himself, he has some visitors from China to help him study bees. Xianbing Xie and Shudong Luo are two students from China who enjoyed working with Huang while they conducted their bee research.

Studying bees is not always fun. 

“Occasionally I got stung in my eyes,” Huang said, “I could get stung 10 times, but it will go away. I don’t know where they are now.”

Bees are active from April to the fall season. Usually during the winter season there are samples collected to study. “You have to leave 60 pounds (of) honey,” Huang said. The bees will eat the honey in order to keep warm and stay alive during the winter months.

“There are many things animals can do, but humans cannot,” Huang said.

Huang used himself as an example of this. He said if he was alone in Germany, where he had never been before, if he walked away from his hotel he would have to return exactly the way he had come to avoid getting lost.

“But bees can integrate all the turns and directions. They can recognize the shortest distance,” Huang said. “They can find the direct navigation to come home. Most humans cannot do that.”

Huang said the explanation for this ability is that bees follow their own innate navigation mechanism. But he still thinks it quite interesting to see how it works.