Wednesday, May 12, 2010

5/12 Moment of Zen: The Flowered Nest of the Loner Bee

The Flowered Nest of the Loner Bee


Bees are commonly though of as the epitome of social animals—our idea of the "hive mind," indicating individuals working as separate bodies following a shared consciousness, borrows from bee terminology. Social hive bees account for the larger population of bees in the world and in popular understanding. But did you know that 75% of the over 20,000 identified bee species are solitary? This means that individual female bees build and provision nests for their eggs and larvae on their own, with no intervention from a collective hive.

Seen above are a few of the nests of one of these species, Osmia avosetta, found in the Middle East. This species' nests, described in a recently released article, are largely constructed underground, of colorful flower petals and a thin mortar of mud. Each of the delicately constructed chambers seen above is built to house and feed a single bee larva.

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