Author Gary Taylor ◦
Still in BeeTown, Meroglossa rubricata… these bees are unlike any other bee I’ve ever studied over the years. They don’t try to make and “cap off” as many nests as they can and die after 4 weeks like most bees, instead they seem to just live on and guard their nests all year round, at least until the young are ready to leave… I’m even convinced (with photographic evidence 😃) the mother raises them to some extent…
So, back to the pics, here the girls are all starting to build up the entrances to their nests (that they’ve been in for months now) with secretions they produce from their mouths… all of them (these are just 3 out of about 30 I have in my BeeTown) at the exact same time… can’t bee coincidence. It’s like rather than obeying the Laws of Normal Beehaviour, they’d prefer to take their time, chill out a bit and breed in unison to a seasonal calendar like penguins instead… Anyway, just sayin’, I think there’s a lot more to these bees than what we know… 🙂
Little bee looked up at me and said “Nah dickhead, you’re overthinking it, we just know it’s about to get really bloody hot and this cools the nest down… it’s simple quantum physics, oh that’s right, you monkeys haven’t learnt the powers of multicrystaline polyinverted refractionism yet… Basically it only lets in cool ultra violet light and expels all warm infra red light creating a reverse neutron particle cycle which as we all know creates a cooling effect…”
I couldn’t believe it… “overthinking it”! Me??? as if!… 😂
Check out the Gary’s other blogs about the Meroglossa rubricata:
an awesome “Commando roll” | Ruby… bubbling | Ruby and the wasp | Party at the nest | red is the weakest, the first to fade in low light | A white bubble | multicrystaline polyinverted refractionism… | suddenly something bigger came torpedoing out of the nest… | running out of room to add new apartments… | She lives on in her chosen nest protecting the family she’s raising | the young emerge | Changing the rules again…
See our Fauna section on Bees for more info on our gorgeous Meroglossa rubricata.
Footnote & References
- Blogs by Gary Taylor, Images © Gary Taylor