Separate storage of honey and pollen is practised only by highly social bees. Either way, the egg is deposited on top of the completed provision. Even when carried separately, pollen and honey are usually combined in the nest to form the larval food, either as a solid, rounded mass or as a fluid or semi-fluid paste. At the nest, they regurgitate the combined pollen and nectar as a semi-fluid paste. Other bees, usually sparsely hairy species, lack scopae and swallow pollen, carrying it mixed with nectar in the stomach. A female bee (Ctenocolletes smaragdinus) carrying yellow pollen on the hairs of her hind legs. Such pollen loads immediately distinguish the insects as bees. A female bee (Hylaeus cyaneomicans) holding a droplet of nectar on her mouth-parts as she thickens it to honey.įemales of most kinds of bees carry their pollen loads on specialized sets of hairs (termed ‘scopae’) on either the hind legs or the underside of the abdomen. They alternately regurgitate and re-swallow droplets of nectar until it reaches the required consistency. They do this by regurgitating the nectar from the honey stomach onto their mouthparts, exposing it to the air to evaporate excess water. While both sexes feed on nectar (a dilute solution of sugars in water), females usually thicken it into honey before taking it back to their nests. Either side of the mouth are the jaws or mandibles which are used for excavating burrows, carrying nesting materials or fighting. Head of a short-tongued bee, Homalictus sp., showing the short, pointed tongue at the end of the proboscis. Long tongues enable nectar-extraction from deep, tubular flowers. A long-tongued bee, Amegilla (Asaropoda) sp. The ‘tongue’ is a flexible hairy extension of the proboscis used for lapping up nectar and for applying secretions during nestbuilding. Our bees are classified into five families, three of which are known as ‘short-tongued’ and two as ‘long-tongued’. Some bees are densely hairy while others are sparsely hairy or almost hairless and some are very wasp-like. Body form varies from broad and rotund to slender and delicate. Our tiniest bees are only about 2.5 mm long while our largest are about ten times as long. Visible only under a microscope, branched or plumed setae distinguish all bees from wasps.Īustralian bees are extremely diverse in terms of size, form, colouration, degree of sociality and behaviour and relatively few resemble the familiar honeybee. This transition to vegetarianism was accomplished with only minor structural changes one of which was the development of plumed or branched bristles and hairs (setae).īranched hairs (setae) from a bee’s abdomen. They have given up their ancestors’ predatory habits and, instead of storing paralysed insect or spider prey as food for their larvae, they collect and store pollen and nectar. Bees are actually specialised wasps closely allied to predatory wasps known as ‘sphecoids’. Approximately 800 species occur in Western Australia and many of them are endemic. Discoveries of new species are not uncommon, so the total number of species may be much higher. Article | Updated 10 years ago A stingless or sugarbag bee, Trigona sp.Īustralia is inhabited by an estimated 2000 species of native bees, many of which have yet to be scientifically named and described.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |