Category: Uncategorized

• Wash your hands

  Bees, like all other organisms, suffer from various diseases. Among the causes are RNA viruses, which can evolve fast and thus quickly change host species (between bees but sometimes also to other insects). These viruses can be transmitted via flowers, the latter compared to “dirty doorknobs” by Burnham et al. in their article from 2021.

  On the cartoon you can see a pair of red mason bees (oops now I see that I forgot to picture horns on female’s face!). Males in this species have quite sophisticated courtship, involving stroking of mate’s eyes with front legs. One would assume they should wash their hands before doing that. Oh wait…

  Transmission of RNA viruses, and also other pathogens, to the wild bees is one of the risks associated with mass breeding and transport for large distances (eg between countries or continents) of the honeybee, bumblebees and other bees.

  

  December 18, 2023

  bee, bees, insects, justyna kierat, nonhoneybees, red mason bee, wild bees, wildbees

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• Attenzione, pickpocket!

  Have you heard of that recently published report of honeybees stealing pollen directly from scopa of wild bee species? Although competition between honeybee and wild bees is an often studied and debated topic, there are only few observations of direct agressive interactions. What is interesting, the victims of theft seem indifferent to what is happening to them, and only rarely try to resist in any way.

  In the abovementioned paper (in German) you can also can find citations of the older papers describing pollen theft.

  And by the way, this cartoon was inspired by a viral movie from Italy. I’m curious if you also saw it, or was it not as much viral as I thought?

  

  November 27, 2023

  bee, bees, honeybee, insects, justyna kierat, nature, nonhoneybees, wild bees, wildbees

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• One more year

  Some bees don’t emerge from their natal nests the next season. Especially in case of desert species, they can skip a year… or several years. As Danforth et al. mention in “The Solitary Bees”, Rozen once kept prepupae of Pararhophites in his desk drawer for five years! And it was not even the record because Amegilla dawsoni can wait for ten years for emergence.

  

  June 16, 2023

  Amegilla, bee, bees, diapause, hibernation, insects, justyna kierat, nature, nonhoneybees, wild bees, wildbees, winter

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