Author Gary Taylor ◦
Meroglossa rubricata, the bees in my previous post that seemed to be communicating to each other with short and quiet but audible little buzz vibrations. 😃 In that post I half joked that I was becoming fluent in Meroglossa and admitted I may bee pushing the boundaries of sanity a tad, but to me in that vid the pitch and repetition sounded like this seasons crop of new born were getting ready to leave the nest… and if I was right I’d be posting pics of them gathering around the entrance to their nests in a day or so… HA! Not so crazy after all… Woohoo! I felt like chuckin’ a couple bog laps through town on my Unicorn 😆
So, first pic, this is how it usually goes, fairly peaceful, seems mum starts by pushing them outside to do some tidying up and then suggests it’s time to cut the apron strings and move on… Some just take a bit more encouragement than others 😅
2nd pic, not a brilliant pic, just another Meroglossa I’d been watching cleaning out, doing some renovations now the kids have moved out (just before I took this pic I’d seen two fly away)…
What astounded me was (3rd pic) the amount of crap (must have been an old Asoc bee nest) that she was excavating… Now I’ve mentioned before that I think they’re a lot smarter than what most people give them credit for and I was just starting to wonder if this one was doing a thesis on archaeology for her PhD when suddenly something bigger came torpedoing out of nest… Seriously got thrown out like a rugby ball in a do or die match between the Wallabies and All Blacks ten minutes from full time and the score is level… I watched it come shooting out and land with an audible splat noise as it just missed the pile of soft debris (oooohhh that was bad luck…) and landed on the hard wood… For a moment I thought she’d hurled out a recently emerged pupa that hadn’t survived… but no, dead looking little bee eventually got up on one elbow, then another, and another, then one knee, another elbow, one more knee, and sorta just shook herself off and flew away 😆 Mums thinkin’ “lazy bloody teenagers, told you I was doing the cleaning today and if you were still in bed you’d be going out with the washing…” 😅
So, why didn’t I get pics? ‘Cos right at that moment I was also watching one of, if not THE most amazing interspecies fights over a nest I’ve ever witnessed unfolding… 😃 Now I have even more respect for their intelligence and belief in their ability to think ahead, plan ahead, stand up for what they believe is right as well as hold a grudge, feel the need for revenge, and show incredible patience waiting for it… But that’s another story… 😆
Photographs © Gary Taylor
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.
Check out more blogs and contribution by Gary Taylor.