Washington, May 5 (Inditop.com) In a rare coincidence, researchers working in both Turkey and Iran discovered on the same day how a rare species of bee builds its nest with petals of pink, yellow, blue and purple flowers.
The females from the solitary species Osima (Ozbekosima) avoseta line the nest’s brood chambers with petals that provide nutrients for the larvae to grow and mature and protect the next generation as they wait out the winter.
“It was absolute synchronicity that we all discovered this uncommon behaviour on the same day,” says Jerome Rozen, curator in the division of invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History.
“In this species, a female shingles the wall of her brood chambers with large pieces of petals or with whole petals, often of many hues,” says Rozen.
“Unfortunately, her larvae never enjoy the brilliant colours of the nest’s walls because they have no eyes — and, anyhow, they would need a flashlight!” he said.
Rozen and colleagues were working near Antalya, Turkey while another group of researchers were in the field in Fars Province, Iran.
“I’m very proud of the fact that so many authors contributed to this paper,” Rozen said.
Bees are the most important animal pollinators living today and many flowering plants depend on them to reproduce.
But nearly 75 percent of bee species — there are about 20,000 species described — are solitary.
This means that for the majority of bees, a female constructs a nest for herself and provisions each chamber in the nest with food for the larval stage of her brood.
When each chamber is ready, the female deposits an egg and closes the nest if there is only one chamber to a nest, says a release of the American Museum of Natural History.
The nests — found in the open — need to be protected from any number of potential threats to their physical structure like compaction of the soil, desiccation, or excessive heating.
The survival of solitary bee species also depends on protection from moulds, viruses, bacteria, parasites, and predators.
The research was published in American Museum Novitates.
