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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