Author Gary Taylor ◦
Never have found out what these little ones are but this week has brought the annual emergence of the Megachile “asoc” bees (as I call ’em) in my BeeTown… I gotta point out here “asoc” is just an acronym, “leaf cutters” use leaves, “resin” bees use resin, asoc bees use All Sorts Of Crap… 😄 I’ve photographed them capping off their nests with everything from rocks (just rocks, no resin) to small sea shells (my BeeTown is where my chook yard used to be… for those not making the connection, what starts with “Sh” ends in “it” and can be found on the floor of a chicken coop? Shell grit of course…) through to polystyrene (there’s a story in that one…) and modelling clay (only bee in town to have a light ‘shell pink’ cap 😃). And they’re notorious thieves, often simply stealing everything they need from other capped off nests… I’ve seen them cap their nests off without travelling more than 30cm, I’ve seen (and photographed) one stealing material from her sister’s cap AS she was building it! But even worse, I watched one finish her first nest with stolen crap, then her second, and by third she was robbing material from her own first nest! Stealing from yourself? Now that’s taking kleptomania to a higher level… 😅
Anyway, 1st pic, this one is giving bamboo a go for capping off, why not? it’s well known for it’s structural properties 😄
2nd pic, coming home with a load of pollen (haha just realised, pure coincidence, she’s using/returned to? the nest capped with modelling clay I mentioned, you can still see the light pink around the edges 🙂).
3rd pic, here’s another thing about ’em, some bees favour bamboo for nesting in, some prefer the clean drilled holes in jarrah blocks, some like the small borer holes in the long dead citrus trunk… Asoc bees aren’t fussy, bamboo, borer hole, drilled hole, Any Size or Shape hole (haha, should have called them ASS-hole bees 😆), this one is checking out a natural hole in an old chunk of acacia… but what I really like about this one is the little spider in the background, I need to get a better pic of that… 😅
4th pic, this little one emerged with a damaged left wing… perhaps an impatient sibling trying to push past, dunno, but it couldn’t fly… It walked all around BeeTown wanting to leave, climbing to the extremities to launch but it’s wings just wouldn’t work… Eventually it fell to the ground where it’d have no chance with the ants and spiders… Yeah, that’s just the way it is, the way of life in nature, the weak don’t survive…
Buuuttt… if you can help another living thing with little or no effort (like flipping an upside-down beetle back on it’s feet or emptying the last warm dregs of your water bottle on a plant rather than on the ground) why not? 😀 So I put a finger down near it and the little bee climbed up (5th pic). Cool, I took it over to my garden a few metres away, put my finger next to a newly opening eremophila flower and (so wish I’d got a pic…) the little sweety climbed straight onto it and went for the nectar like a puppy smelling a saucer of fresh cows milk… And yes I know it’s got buckleys chance of living a full life but it’s better than none… 🙂
Photographs © Gary Taylor
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