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Bees suddenly stopped buzzing in the US during the 2017 solar eclipse

By Leah Crane

10 October 2018

solar eclipse

Only one bee was heard

NASA/Getty

Buzz: off. During the solar eclipse that swept across North America last year, a set of 16 monitoring stations recorded bees suddenly going quiet in the period of totality, when the moon completely obscured the sun. Only one buzz was recorded across all of the microphones in the three-minute period surrounding totality.

In August 2017, the moon obscured the sun in a total solar eclipse visible across the US. Candace Galen at the University of Missouri and her colleagues set up microphones in stands of flowers along the path of the eclipse, from Oregon…

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