Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Brian



I found this wasp digging her nest outside of our building, and I decided to call her Brian. I took this video with my phone, so it's a little shaky, but you can see all the hard work it takes for ground dwelling insects to excavate their homes.

As the majority of solitary bees live in the ground as well, I thought I'd look for some similar examples of bees digging their nests. Here are a couple I came up with: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMqfDRexOGY and www.youtube.com/watch?v=muc2JWrI40M
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6 comments:

  1. SUEJuly 21, 2010 at 1:51 PM

    That is a neat video Scott.

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  2. Kensho StudioJuly 21, 2010 at 10:03 PM

    So, does only one bee live in there?? I watched the other links as well, very interesting....but I'm still scared of any type of bee, wasp, hornet...

    ~Michele

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  3. Scott PJuly 22, 2010 at 8:12 AM

    Yes Michele,

    Brian is a solitary wasp, and the other videos were of solitary bees. This means they will make their own nest, and live alone inside. In fact most bees are solitary, and will make nests for themselves in the ground or in plant stems. Honey bees and bumblebees are actually the exception, not the rule. For example, there are about 500 species of bee in both Michigan and Ohio. Of those 500, only 1 is a honey bee, and only about 20 are bumblebees. That's 479 species of bee that basically live alone!

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  4. Kensho StudioJuly 22, 2010 at 1:04 PM

    Thanks Scott! This is so interesting. I am learning a lot from all of you this summer. I never knew that about bees! All these years I thought they lived in big groups, waiting to attack me! Ha!

    I see small holes, here and there, in our very sandy lawn (mostly weeds). Andy thought maybe spiders live in the holes? What do you think? Spiders or bees?

    Thanks,
    Michele

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  5. Scott PJuly 23, 2010 at 10:09 AM

    Ha ha! They aren't out to get you Michele.
    It's hard to tell what would be living in your lawn, as some spiders also live in the ground, as well as many other insects. Your best bet would be to pay attention when you're out there and see if you can discover what crawls inside.
    But I'll vote for bees just because I'm biased towards them :)

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  6. Kensho StudioJuly 23, 2010 at 4:36 PM

    Are you saying you LIKE bees?? What?? OK, maybe I am being a bit silly and I do like honey (ALOT) so I must like bees....but they still make me really nervous! I will watch in the yard and see if I can figure out what's living there.

    Have a great weekend and thanks for putting up with me!
    ~Michele

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