Author Marc Newman ◦
There appears to be some nefarious happening in the Wheatbelt and Goldfields area of Western Australia… not quite highway robbery…
These little Australians are biting open the closed individual flowers of grevillea’s to access the pollen, before the tepals split naturally to free the style on top of which the pollen would normally be presented.
Here you can see the two female Hylaeus (Hylaeteron) douglasi native Australian bees staking out the pre-anthesis flowers at the tip of a conflorescence of Grevillea excelsior (Orange Flame Grevillea).
In the following closeup view, the female Hylaeus (Hylaeteron) douglasi has cut a hole into the perianth limb of a flower of Grevillea excelsior (which was still closed) to extract pollen. Just to the left, evidence of more cut holes into the flowers are visible with some remaining crumbs of pollen.
Operculum lifting behaviour
Now another pollen caper is spreading to the Granite Belt Region of the Southern Downs in Queensland. A female Meroglossa impressifrons penetrata on the Eucalyptus infera is removing the operculum from a partially dehised bud.
Here she is starting to lift the operculum on a partly dehisced eucaluptus inferor bud. Note the mandibles under the rim of the operculum
She has moved around the bud.
It’s working, the operculum is moving.
Over to the other side again…
Success! It worked! She is into the pollen. But how did she know the pollen was available?
I have often wondered how she knew the pollen was available?
I had initially bashed the partly dehisced bud on a black card to reveal pollen, but subsequent tests revealed that some buds were not yet releasing pollen, which led to the question how does the bee know if the pollen was available, if not a waste of effort.
My thoughts are that she was able to detect it somehow, as some of the partly dehisced buds did not have pollen available from the anthers.
There was no hiding the pollen from this little girl…
Read more about this under our Bee Behaviour > Operculum lifting behaviour
Footnote & References
- Newman, Marc & Jacobi, Bernhard. (2011). Operculum-lifting behaviour in the Eucalypt-visiting hylaeine bees Meroglossa impressifrons penetrata (SMITH, 1879) and Hylaeus (Hylaeorhiza) nubilosus (SMITH, 1853). Bembix. 5 – 12. , https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305653125_Operculum-lifting_behaviour_in_the_Eucalypt-visiting_hylaeine_bees_Meroglossa_impressifrons_penetrata_SMITH_1879_and_Hylaeus_Hylaeorhiza_nubilosus_SMITH_1853
- Photographs Meroglossa impressifrons penetrata female on Eucalyptus infera © Marc Newman, Flickr, https://flickr.com/photos/koolbee/albums
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