Tag: solitary bees

• Hard life

  Some bee species can use many various plants as their pollen sources (but still, they can have preferences) but there are others which are more or less specialized. The pollen specialists use plants belonging to only one family, sometimes their diet is restricted to just a few genera or a few species. They can’t live in areas where their food plants are absent. It shouldn’t surprise us, then, that pollen specialists are often rare or endangered.

  On the drawing you see a pair of Clarke’s mining bee, Andrena clarkella, which collects pollen exclusively from willows.

  

  March 22, 2024

  Andrena, bee, bees, insects, justyna kierat, nature, nonhoneybees, solitary bee, solitary bees, wild bees, wildbees

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• Listening

  I did such a drawing of a bee (which was meant to be male Hoplitis cristatula, with his lovely bright blue eyes), and when I put it on my Facebook page, a friend of mine asked me if bees can hear.

  Yes, they can! But not too well. They can receive frequencies between 20 and 500 Hz, so far narrower range than humans. Their hearing organs are located on their antennae, at the base of flagellum. These informations apply to honeybees, I don’t know about other bees being studied in this respect but I suppose it is pretty much the same between species.

  

  December 14, 2023

  bee, bees, hearing, Hoplitis, insects, justyna kierat, nature, nonhoneybees, pollinators, solitary bees, wild bees, wildbees

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• On the sand and on the rock

  Featuring: Nomioides minutissimus and Megachile parietina. I also hope you recognize the Biblical reference 

  

  June 8, 2023

  bee, bees, insects, megachile, nature, Nomioides, solitary bees, wild bees, wildbees

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• Too good job

  Some solitary bees leave their nests open when they go foraging, but others cover the entrance before leaving. Grey-backed mining bee, Andrena vaga, not only covers the nest but also sometimes digs a false nest entrance a few centimeters away and leaves it open. It is a way to deceive its nest parasites which would like to lay their eggs in her nest. Sometimes not only cuckoo bee is fooled by this false nest, but also the returning mining bee itself flies straight to it, before realizing its mistake. 

  

  June 8, 2023

  Andrena, bee, bees, insects, mining bee, nature, solitary bee, solitary bees, wild bees, wildbees

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