Non-honey bees

Some phenomena can be studied only when you can recognize individuals of the same species. For example, red mason bees often usurp each other’s nests. If you can’t tell them apart, you have little chance of knowing that the bee provisioning a nest is not the same as yesterday. Have you ever wondered how scientists tell one bee from another in their experiments?

A frequently used method is gluing tiny plastic tags on the bees’ thoraxes. The combination of colour and number is unique for every individual in the studied population. I used tags on the red mason bees (Osmia bicornis) during my PhD studies, and here you can see an example of ongoing study on the orchard mason bee (Osmia cornuta) conducted by Grupo de Investigación en Ecología de Insectos y de la Polinización, CREAF. There is also a photo of a real tagged bee!