BEES
58 BBCWildlife July^2020when we think of bees our minds turn
immediately to the one species we know
best – the honeybee. Domesticated for at
least 4,000 years, this native of Africa and
the Mediterranean basin now lives nearly
everywhere that people do, providing honey,
wax and vital crop pollination. But while
we marvel at their social order and teeming
hives, honeybees are an oddity.
Rather than massing by the thousands
around a single queen, the vast majority of
bees are loners. They inherited that solitary
habit from their ancestors, and most found
no evolutionary reason to change their
ways. In fact, living alone may be the key to
their great diversity.
For social species, such as honeybees (or
that other familiar clan, the bumblebees),
providing for a large colony requires a
flexible diet. They need to visit a wide range
of flowers – nearly whatever is blooming –just to keep up with a hungry and growing
hive. Solitary bees, on the other hand, can
afford to specialise. After mating in the
spring, each female sets off to provision her
own tiny nest. She may live only a matter
of weeks, tucking away enough pollen and
nectar for a handful of offspring that will
emerge the following season to start the
whole cycle over again. This simple lifestyle
lends itself to endless variation, with species
becoming specially adapted to particular
flower types, time periods, nesting habitats
and foraging strategies.
Mining bees, for example, are often food
specialists. They nest in the ground and time
their emergence to focus on the blooms
of their chosen plants. Small and dark-
coloured, the most distinctive feature of anygiven miner is often
what it eats. Many
species are active in
the spring, feeding
on their own narrow
selection of plants,
such as willows,
heaths, evening
primroses or mustards.
Others dig their way out in the
autumn, to take advantage of late-
blooming asters.
Members of the oil-collecting bee family
are even pickier. As their name implies, they
supplement the pollen in their diet with
droplets of floral oils, which also come in
handy for waterproofing their nests. This
quirk restricts them to the few plants withFemale solitary bees live brief lives
of frenetic activity – finding a mate,
building nests and provisioning their
offspring with as much pollen and
nectar as time allows. Not surprisingly,
more than a few species have figured
out a shortcut. Up to a third of all bees
are cuckoos, sneakily laying their eggs
in the nests of other species. Their
young quickly dispatch the host larvae
and take all that hard-earned food for
themselves. With no need to gather
pollen of their own, adult cuckoos are
usually smooth and wasp-like, making
them some of the hardest of all bees to
successfully identify.Cuckoo bees
Cuckoo bees
can seem a
little waspish.Above: mining
bees can be rather
fussy when it
comes to their
food sources- only certain
flowers will make
the cut.
The world’s largest
bee lives only inside
the nests of rainforest
termites in Indonesia.