Bees are species in the genus Xylocopa of the Xylocopinae subfamily. This genus includes about 500 species in 31 subgenera. The common name "carpenter bees" comes from their nesting behavior; almost all species dig into hardwood material such as dead wood or bamboo. The main exceptions are species in subgenus Proxylocopa ; they dig tunnels nesting on suitable ground.
Video Carpenter bee
Etimologi
The French entomologist Pierre Andrà ©  © Latreille described the genus in 1802. He got the name from the Ancient Greek xylokopos /????????? "loggers".
Maps Carpenter bee
Characteristics
Many species in this giant genus are difficult to distinguish; most species are all black, or especially black with some yellow or white puberty. Some differ only in the subtle morphological features, such as male genital details. Men from several different species are confusing from females, which are covered in greenish yellow hair. The confusion of species arises primarily in common names; in India, for example, the common name for all black species Xylocopa is bhanvra , and the reports and appearances bhanvra are generally misrepresented for European species < i> Xylocopa violacea ; However, this species is found only in the northern regions of Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab, and most reports on bhanvra , especially elsewhere in India, refer to about 15 of the other common black colors Xylocopa species in this region, such as X. nasalis , X. tenuiscapa , or X. tranquebarorum .
Non-professionals usually confuse wooden bees with bumblebee; The simplest basic rule to distinguish them is that most wood bees have a shiny stomach, while the bumblebee's stomach is completely covered by dense hair. Men of some species of wood bees have white or yellow faces, unlike bees, while females do not have bare bee corbicles; the back leg is completely hairy.
Venation wings are characteristic; the marginal cells on the front wing are narrow and elongated, and the peaks bend far from the costa. The front wing has a small stigma. When closed, the bee's short jaw hides the labrum. The clypeus is flat. Men of many species have eyes that are much larger than females, which are related to their mating behavior.
In the United States, two eastern species, Xylocopa virginica and X. mican , occur. Three more species, especially in the western part of the distribution, X. varipuncta , X. tabaniformis orpifex , and X. californica . X. virginica is by far the more widespread species.
Ecological significance
In some species, females live with their own daughter or sister, creating small social groups. They use wood bits to form partitions between cells in the nest. Some species make holes in wooden houses. Because the tunnel is near the surface, structural damage is generally small or shallow.
Wooden bees have short mouths and are important pollinators on some open or shallow flowers; for some they are even mandatory pollinators, such as maypop ( Passiflora incarnata ) and Orphium , which are not pollinated by other insects. They are also important flower pollinators with various forms of cover, such as species Salvia and some members of Fabaceae. But many carpenters of bees "rob" nectar by cutting the flower's side with a deep corolla. Xylocopa virginica is one example of a species with such nectar robbery. With their short labia, the bees can not reach the nectar without piercing the long flowers; they lose contact with the sari head and do not pollinate. In some plants, this reduces the production of fruits and seeds, while others have developed defense mechanisms against raiding nectar. When feeding for pollen from some species with tubular flowers, however, the same species of bees still reach pollination, if anthers and stigmata are exposed together.
Many Old World bees have a special pocket-like structure inside their first metabolic digile called acarinarium in which certain mites ( dinogamasus species) reside as commensal. The exact nature of the relationship is not fully understood, although in other bees that carry mites, they are beneficial, feeding well on fungi in the nest, or in other dangerous mites.
Behavior
The carpenter bee is traditionally considered a solitary bee, although some species have simple social nests where mothers and daughters can live together. Examples of this type of social nesting can be seen in species Xylocopa sulcatipes and Xylocopa nasalis . As women mingle, the division of labor between them sometimes occurs. In this species, some well-nested females share in foraging and nesting, or one female does all the escaping and nesting, while other females keep.
The solitary species are different from the social species. The solitary bees tend to be gregarious and often some solitary honeycomb close to each other. In solitary nesting, bees seek for food, build cells, lay eggs, and keep. Usually, only one generation of bees live in the nest. Xylocopa pubescens is one of the species of wood bees that can have social and solitary nests.
The carpenter's bee makes a nest by bolting it to wood, bamboo, and similar plant material like a flower handle, usually dead. They thrill themselves as they pierce their mandible against hardwood, each nest having one entrance that may have many tunnels close together. As subfamilies, they attack host plants, but each species may indicate a particular adaptation or preference for a particular crop group. The entrance is often a perfectly circular hole measuring about 16 mm (0.63 inches) at the bottom of a beam, bench, or tree limb. Wooden bees do not eat wood. They throw away pieces of wood, or reuse particles to build partitions between cells. The tunnel serves as a breeding ground for parent and storage for pollen/nectar where the mother ponders. The mass provision of some species is the most complex in the form of any bee group; whereas most bees fill their stem cells with supple masses and others form a simple pollen mass, the Xylocopa species form a long, carved and carefully sculpted mass that has multiple projections that make up most of the mass in contact with walls cells, sometimes resembling an irregular caltrop. Eggs are very large relative to female size, and are some of the largest eggs among all insects.
Two very different marriage systems seem common to wooden bees, and often these can be determined simply by examining the male specimens of a particular species. The species in which men have large eyes are marked by a mating system in which men either look for women by patrolling, or by hovering and waiting for the passing females, which they then pursue. In other mating systems, males often have very small heads, but large hypertrophy gland reservoirs in the mesosoma release pheromones into the airflow behind men when they fly or fly. Pheromones advertise the presence of males to females.
Male bees are often seen hovering near the nest, and will approach the nearby animal. However, men are not dangerous, because they have no sting. Female bees can sting, but they are benign and rarely sting unless caught in the hand or provoked directly.
Natural Predators
Woodpeckers eat wooden bees, as do many species of birds, such as shrikes and bee-eaters as well as some mammals such as ratels. Other predators include large species of Mantodea and predator flies, especially large species of the Asilidae family. Woodpeckers are attracted to the noise of bee larvae and drill holes along the tunnel to eat it.
Aside from direct predators, the parasitoidal species of the flying bees (eg Xenox ) lay their eggs at the entrance to the honeycomb and the live maggots fly from bees larvae.
Species
Gallery
References
External links
- United States Xylocopa Identification Guide
- List of Species
- Worldwide Species Maps
- Close-up photos of wooden bees - taken near the town of Chavarillo, Veracruz, Mexico
- bee, Xylocopa spp. on the UF/IFAS Feature Creatures website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments