Breeding of osmium bees. Osmia rufa, cornuta, hives

No, no, no! He said exactly that:

Some strange "secret", considering that how much I have already seen the anthophore-all good such pollen lumps were, even in the photo where the anthophore in flight can be seen that the pollen on the paw is full.
So the anthophores are probably not correct there (well, what else can I expect)) ) and wear the wrong honey and pollen )

I'm talking about Yerema, and Pan is talking about Foma. You never know who, where and with what flies, I write about the amount of pollen de facto brought to the nests. And I have more than a dozen of them in my mailbox already. I understand that pan can't observe any nest, but why insert meaningless replicas? The lining is much better seen in my photo of the anthophora in the drawer. This is a full serving. And these are brought 1-2 per hour (more often 1). How many such portions are needed to provide protein to one anthophora larva (taking into account that a small fraction of the substance passes from one trophic level to another)? And how many cells with larvae in one nest? Something doesn't match the debit with the credit. The only unknown variable so far that can help clarify is the proviation period, and so far none of my bees have completed it. But I don't remember it being particularly long from previous years. It will be necessary, if possible, to trace the sealing dates of all the nests.

This post was edited by ENO-04/20/2016 18: 56

Ezox, unlike you-anthophores are clearly not Internet experts who count the number of pollen, as well as the detail and size of carp by eye )), and carry so much pollen. how much they need for their needs.
And given the amount of amino acids in pollen, it can be assumed that most other species are clearly more than necessary. Nitrogenous compounds are a minuscule percentage, the body is mainly composed of water, however

According to the laws of aerodynamics, a bumblebee cannot fly, but it does not know them and therefore does not fall (c).

Most likely, it's just that other bees carry more pollen (than is hypothetically necessary to provide the larva with protein), and its excess goes to something that carbohydrates would also do. After all, it is easier for some species to bring more nectar, for others-pollen, this is due to a whole complex of features of certain species that have developed evolutionarily. For example, features of bee morphology that make it a less or more effective collector of pollen or nectar on certain plants (size, type, density and length of osprey bristles), features of food plants (not all of them give nectar at all, and if they do, then different amounts), the presence of certain plants in a given place and time, features of the cell structure (anthophora has a special lining, and if you pour its bread from its cell into the cell of Osmium bicornis, it will be absorbed all into the partition, since the osmia did not learn how to make a lining, they had a different evolutionary path).
Therefore, by the way, osmias are the best pollinators of gardens, they are more adapted to them than the honey bee, they visit more flowers per unit of time (fruit trees give little nectar, and the proportions of nectar and pollen in a flower are about the same as in an osmium cell).

And where does the nitrogen come from? Not to mention other elements besides carbon oxygen and hydrogen. Pollen is obviously a good source (for those who know how to digest it), but if anthophora loaves contain very little of it, and they consist mainly of nectar, as Carcharot claims, then it turns out to be a paradox. The energy of carbohydrates or fats is, of course, wonderful, but you also need to have somewhere to stay.

Darwin also described how the Gaucho ate only meat all their lives, and the Gauso ate only vegetable food. Both of them developed normally, apparently.

Plant food is not just one nectar. So, although with great difficulty, a person can live on it if he finds enough diverse plants. But in fact, the vegetative parts and pulp of the fruits of most plant species are poor in everything except carbohydrates, and therefore pure phytophages have to eat in three throats all their lives to meet their physiological needs. Of course, we can assume that the anthophora larva receives as many amino acids from nectar as the osmium larva receives from pollen, but for this, the anthophora cells must be simply huge, with whole lakes of nectar. Although I haven't dug up any nests, I doubt that's the case. Obviously, we must admit that this mystery is still shrouded in darkness.

I want to share my humble experience. I didn't know about this topic, I didn't study the materiel (about reeds), but simply cut a thick stick into pieces and drilled holes in them, put them on the balcony.
Already on the 2nd day (18.04), osmias have nested (I will be grateful if someone determines up to the species).
I observed such a thing: two bees flew into one cell, what would that mean?
The next day, a parasitic fly appeared near the nest, as I understand it. Wonder how she found it? Seventh floor after all.
The next day (20.04) the bees did not arrive.

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This is Osmia cormuta. The first two images show the final earth plug, and you won't see any bees there until next spring. How deep were the holes?

At school, I hung a couple of beehives in the backyard, away from the schoolhouse. No more than 4 female osmias fly, one is red and the rest are red-bellied.

And also at the second job, behind the office I have such evidence hanging on the fence, but today I put such a collapsible beehive on the roof.

This is Osmia cormuta. The first two images show the final earth plug, and you won't see any bees there until next spring. How deep were the holes?

Holes are approximately 5 cm deep (plus or minus bast shoes) and 7 mm in diameter. They sealed two cells, and it was as if they were starting the third one, but they abandoned it. I don't know why.

Or maybe they didn't leave, but just don't fly until the permafrost attacks us, my osmia also don't fly, yesterday it was a downpour all day, and today it's +10 in the afternoon and the wind.
By the way, I now have two osmia, there is another one, the same as before lived. About the work, the idea is interesting, the day before yesterday I saw Osmia at work, who was clearly looking for a place to nestle, you also had to hang something there.

Plant food is not just one nectar. So, although with great difficulty, a person can live on it if he finds enough diverse plants. But in fact, the vegetative parts and pulp of the fruits of most plant species are poor in everything except carbohydrates, and therefore pure phytophages have to eat in three throats all their lives to meet their physiological needs. Of course, we can assume that the anthophora larva receives as many amino acids from nectar as the osmium larva receives from pollen, but for this, the anthophora cells must be simply huge, with whole lakes of nectar. Although I haven't dug up any nests, I doubt that's the case. Obviously, we must admit that this mystery is still shrouded in darkness.

There is no mystery. If you drop a little nectar on the same amount of pollen or dilute it with nectar to a liquid state, then the amount of protein will be approximately equal, and the total weight of the bread is more in the second case. In this case, in the first case, the bee is smaller than the second bee. But in both cases, the mass of the bee is less than the mass of pollen included in the bread. In the first case, the coefficient of assimilation of bread as a whole will be higher, and pollen-lower, in the second-on the contrary.

So, after a long break due to a sharp cold snap that forced the door to be sealed again (the heating is already tut-tut), today I was able to return to watching bees on the balcony. The observations turned out to be quite interesting and quite effective. First of all, the reed from which osmia bicornis flew out, captured on the videryad, has changed its owner, now it is a large osmia cornuta. Already carrying pollen. And the bicornis is still there, too, wearing it, I didn't notice only in what reed. But it is unlikely that they will both take turns feeding one reed. Or can they? We'll need to track it more precisely tomorrow.

Then, finally, I was able to get more or less normal shots of an incomprehensible bee settling in a transparent tube, which I initially took for a megahila. Fortunately, she just clogged the next partition and wore dirt much faster than pollen: twice in five minutes. So this is osmium, and it seems to be even bicornis (so the very first impression was correct), only slightly colored. Or some other reason?







And here's what her nest looks like:




Here's an idea of where you can get a lot of fresh pollen for bumblebee farming, if you are not a beekeeper.

And finally, news from the anthophorium box. At the moment, there are about 10 burrows, while two of the oldest ones remain. The rest are either sealed, or just the walls have crumbled, and there is no one to clear them, since the housewives have disappeared. All the same, the weather for the last few days was not the safest for flying insects. There are also three or four burrows dug a little later, also already being provisioned. All the others are new, and the bees are actively digging them. The frequency of arrivals and departures remained the same: once every 10-15 minutes for building bees and 1-2 times per hour for providing food. And each time the latter bring all the same crumbled legs (usually even less than the one previously captured in the photo). So if these bees aren't going to carry pollen until midsummer, there's still a mystery.

But not only anthophores visit the box. Today, two melekts visited it simultaneously. Moreover, one behaved very curiously: it sat motionless at the hole of the anthophora burrow and regularly, once every 15 to 30 minutes, slowly got up, climbed inside, but immediately, backing away, got out and returned to its previous position. It seems to be watching for a certain moment in the development of the nest. Melekta in "sleep mode" did not cause any reaction from the owner, who calmly carried pollen past, even when the parasite was sitting just a centimeter from the burrow. But as soon as one antophora sitting at the entrance flew into the field of view of another, the first one immediately took off and violently attacked the neighbor (neither butting nor biting in the ass). Also, for the first time, one anthophora was seen rummaging through other people's burrows. What she was doing there was unclear, but she didn't stay long. I think I was just checking to see if any of the nests were abandoned to be privatized instead of digging my own, and when I couldn't find one, I left.







This post was edited by ENO - 24.04.2016 22: 55

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So, after a long break due to a sharp cold snap that forced the door to be sealed again (the heating is already tut-tut), today I was able to return to watching bees on the balcony. The observations turned out to be quite interesting and quite effective. First of all, the reed from which osmia bicornis flew out, captured on the videryad, has changed its owner, now it is a large osmia cornuta. Already carrying pollen. And the bicornis is still there, too, wearing it, I didn't notice only in what reed. But it is unlikely that they will both take turns feeding one reed. Or can they? We'll need to track it more precisely tomorrow.

Anything can happen. But most often this happens when the first owner dies, and the new one just uses the remaining space.

Then, finally, I was able to get more or less normal shots of an incomprehensible bee settling in a transparent tube, which I initially took for a megahila. Fortunately, she just clogged the next partition and wore dirt much faster than pollen: twice in five minutes. So this is osmium, and it seems to be even bicornis (so the very first impression was correct), only slightly colored. Or some other reason?

Osmia bicornis, 100%.

Today I clarified the situation. Bicornis now flies to the old reed, swings a pendulum at the entrance and eventually flies into another, neighboring one. Rather, the first time I flew into one neighboring reed, the second time - into another. But in the one where she started, and where kornuta then settled, - not a foot. I suspect it was this: the cold snap combined with a squally wind caught bicornis outside the nest, and somewhere she was waiting for him. At this time, a thicker and more warmed root settled on top of its nest. As the weather warmed up, Bicornis returned, but she was not expected. So I had to master the neighboring reeds.

And the small corn that settled in another hive, and which I managed to photograph, is no longer shown, although there is no final traffic jam. I suspect it's worth it during the cold snap. In general, the invasion of cold air at the end of April is clearly not good for the bees.

On the previous page of osmia, he asked about the fly if it was a parasite, but I noticed a similar one yesterday, and today too:




And in the box with anthophores, another flew in, a little larger:

I shone my flashlight into the hive. Everything turned out to be even more interesting, something like this:



This post was edited INO-25.04.2016 19: 46

Today on the balcony just some trash and fumes! Obviously, the transition of the daytime temperature beyond 20 degrees greatly increased the activity of bees. First, corn flew to hive No. 3 and let's climb into all the reeds in a row, including the thinnest ones (so that they almost cracked). As a result, from all povynosila films and other soderdzhimoe, clearing the way for followers, and she settled in the long-cleaned reed No. 1 (see this above). And let's get the pollen out of there!




I threw it out just like any other garbage, a decent yellow spot was formed on the floor. Whether it was the previous cornuta's food supply or the very first owner of the reed - bicornis, I don't know. And when bicornis (in the neighboring reed) arrived, she intercepted it on the fly, grappled in a ball that fell to the floor. And so on two times in a row. As a result, Bicornis didn't show up for a long time afterwards. After that, the ruin of cornutus began... carry your own pollen in the reed, judging by the color and size of the grains from the plant of the same species. What a stupid slave of instinct! Meanwhile, bicornis began to flock from all over the world, and scurry around in all the holes, including the burrows of the anthophore. As a result, one did nestle in unknown spaces under the windowsill. The other continued to ventilate the reed # 3 of hive #3. And she did it in a rather interesting way: first she flew in, as expected, head first, did something inside for a couple of minutes, then climbed out, turned around, and climbed again, but this time backwards. And so it is every time. Obviously, this is the only way to unload in that narrow reed. But no one came to trostinka No. 2 after Kornuta visited it. Again I noticed a fly curling around the cuts and sitting down next to them. But this time it was covered with pollen, which seems to hint at the fact of penetration into one of the nests.



Kornuta did return to hive No. 2, and in the same reed that she visited before the cold snap, apparently the same one. So I buried her early. But the big beehive No. 1, made using Karharaot's pantyhose technology, was left out of this funhouse. Not a single bee or fly came to him during the day. And I've never seen anyone fly in before. And how I firmly attached it to the wall in a clever way, for centuries! And how harmonious it looked there! But my patience ran out, I decided to take it off. A careful examination with a flashlight confirmed my suspicions: there was not the slightest trace of a bee in any of the reeds. Apparently, the place was chosen, although the interior is beautiful, but the bees are not visited at all. I've got it tucked under the windowsill between the second and third windows, and it's definitely going to be occupied, and it's going to be more convenient to look around.

But the most interesting thing was happening in the box with anthophores. In addition to the aforementioned osmia, several anthophora and two melecta also searched other people's burrows. A particularly interesting picture was captured when the owner of the anthophora caught melekta just crawling out of her hole:



If you're caught in the middle of something hot, the main thing is to pretend to be a hose, and everything will be fine! But those who, instead of sitting still, tried to fly (and these were other anthophores) in a similar situation were waiting for a ram with acceleration in the back.



And sometimes three or four anthophores chased each other at once. The continuous buzzing on the balcony continued until deep dusk. In some instances, the sound became some kind of uneven, rattling, apparently, they were already flying around very much. But they still look for places for burrows and dig. But those bees that have already dug burrows and carry pollen with nectar, arrive and fly away quickly and rarely, all the same 1-2 times an hour. The very first burrows have already been filled in, and their edges have collapsed, and the mistresses no longer appear. I deliberately put a blade of grass across one of them this morning, and it still lies untouched. It looks like the provocation is over.

This post was edited by ENO - 26.04.2016 23: 46

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My bees in the experimental areas had 100% sealed houses.
I had to put them away for storage and make new ones. I'll hang it today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D941ZYfGFrY
From the very beginning, there were about a hundred cocoons in the divorce jar. Up to 20 females actively flew and "bombed" me with their heads(while I was shooting full tubes).
A healthy collapsible hive(at the beginning of the page) has already been populated and there are final covers.

It hangs there flimsily, swaying at the slightest rustle. What if there's a squall?

Normally worried, nothing has disappeared yet.

Then, probably, there was just no squall yet.

Today on my balcony settled another kornuta, but not in the hive, but in... a wheelbarrow:




I spent the whole day pulling out huge plates of an incomprehensible gray substance from inside. Apparently, it was used to decorate the walls of the nest cells of some Eumenina, who settled there in two thousand shaggy years. I tried to shove reeds right under the bee's nose, which didn't have to take out so much garbage, and the entrance to which was much more convenient, but the bee stubbornly ignored them and continued to work on clearing the steel tube.



Otherwise, everything is still the same. At the moment, two more cornuts (in reeds) and three bicornis live on the balcony (one in a reed, one in a transparent tube and another in an unknown sub-window space). Interestingly, bicornis spend the night with their heads facing the exit, and Cornuts-with their asses. Well, a large number of anthophores in the box with the earth. In one half of it, where the bees started burrowing earlier, most of the entrances are sealed or collapsed. There's one that's open, but I've never seen a bee fly in all day. In the second half, which is populated later, provision is actively continued. Since yesterday, anthophores have been carrying a different pollen - bright orange. Osmias continue to wear lemon yellow, but today for the first time one of the bicornis brought a portion of orange. Yellow pollen, most likely from dandelions, which bloom in abundance right under the houses. But the orange one I don't know where, maybe with lilac? What color is her pollen? In any case, the bees have to fly further for it (nothing exactly grows directly under the windows), but they bring it, perhaps, even more often than before they brought yellow-up to three times an hour. But the new izschuschih females noticeably decreased, only a couple of a day saw. Two melekts came again, still the same, I think. One of them, small and shingled, visits the left half of the box day after day (which is already completely sealed), the other, large and shiny, visits the right half.

The number of anthophores on the balcony has greatly decreased in the last couple of days, most of the burrows are filled up. But some of the buried ones have long since been reopened, and I suspect that this is the work of Melekt. They themselves can already be seen near the box more often than the anthophore. The searching females of the latter disappeared altogether.

Now about osmia. Reed #3 of hive #3 (it contains the bicornis nest) is sealed with an earthen plug. In the next reed # 1, Cornutha finishes the last cell. No one ever settled in reed No. 2, although a female bicornis spent one night in it.




In the transparent tube, the construction of the bicornis nest is also nearing completion, with a maximum of a couple of cells remaining before the cavity is exhausted. The bee is still there.

I don't know how things are in hive No. 2, where the very first corn has settled, it is located in a rather inaccessible place. There are no traffic jams, I didn't see any bees nearby today, but I didn't observe them for long either.

Beehive # 1, which is wearing tights, is still empty. In general, after the thermometer again fell below +20 for a long time in the afternoon, the activity of searching female osmias again greatly decreased, and there are no new nests after the wheelbarrow.

My assumption that the orange pollen is from lilac was not confirmed. Lilac's anthers turned out to be yellow, and so far without pollen. The next suspect is a horse chestnut, and we'll need to get a better look at its flowers.

This post was edited by ENO-03.05.2016 02: 39

How many of you have tried to slip your osmia a crevice house? One beekeeper must have done this to his own people:

Today I made similar ones, tomorrow I will try to hang them from my barrel with bees.

This post was edited by osmia-03.05.2016 23: 12

Wow, how many cells there are in one chest of drawers! )) I still have two pipes sealed only with earth, but these are very long pipes, and there is also foraging.

Today I have an open day of closed nests on my balcony: almost simultaneously, the final plugs appeared on the transparent tube (bicornis), on the second reed of hive No. 2 (cornuta, she quickly completed this second nest!) and on a wheelbarrow (cornut).




I removed the transparent tube from the cardboard sleeve and replaced it with a similar one. And inside the first one is this:




The first two cells and the penultimate one (if you count from the back end) are twice as large as the others. What does this mean? They will develop females, and the rest - males? In the earlier root nests I came across, all the cells were the same size. In the first cell - the larva of the first instar, in the rest - eggs. Their size is noticeably smaller than that of cornutus. Just before the exit, a protective empty "lobby" is left, exactly the same as I previously observed in the nests. The unpleasant news was the presence of white mold in the second cell. This is how it began in last year's rootstock nest, built in a similar tube, and ended with the complete overgrowth of all cells and the death of the brood. I think I'll cut the affected section out of harm's way tomorrow.

There are no more than five open anthophore nests left in the box, and hostesses are rarely seen. But melects are constantly present, up to two individuals at a time. Once there was even a fight between them, rather sluggish and ended in nothing: both remained at their own.







This post was edited by ENO-05.05.2016 00: 00

Yesterday I was a little out of time for bees, and today (oh horror!) mold also spread to the first and third cells:




As a result, I cut the tube at the distal end of the third cell. The back surface of the next partition was disinfected with a solution of hydrogen peroxide (this tool somehow helped me to get rid of the backside of the tarantula spider). Now I'm thinking about how and how to shut it all up. The larva is still alone - in the first cell, it has started to eat (pollen in the gut shows through).

Yes, that's what carelessness means, it was a lot of business to cut off a cell
In general, it is clear that polymer garbage is clearly not suitable for this business, "does not breathe". And the idea is good, to observe the development, only it would be, development, IMHO, everything will rot sooner or later.

Cutting a flexible tube without destroying fragile partitions is not an easy and fast task. I saw nests of osmias in such pipes from the bourgeoisie - no mold. There were also domestic pictures of nests in glass tubes, also quite normal. Vaughn, Carcharot recommends growing larvae in test tubes, tightly plugged with cotton wool, and no one suffocates him. Probably, we have such a flexible special on the flowers comes across...

This post was edited INO-06.05.2016 19: 50

The new blade will cut right through at a run. I hope megascientific Ezox at least guessed to cut with a margin for a couple of visually good cells, there are probably GIFs growing already in full swing.

Since Pan is so smart, maybe he can take a video of the master class? Because I just started cutting with the blade, but due to deformation, (the tube is flexible) the nearest partition immediately began to crumble. It turned out that it was necessary to cut with nail scissors in a circle.

What kind of nests are these?

A slit hive in which the osmium builds a cocoon of earth for itself.
Judging by the image , there are a lot of undeveloped bees.
I didn't hang up the slit evidence I made, I didn't know when, but I noticed the absence of summer osmium!! Just a couple of them dragging the ground. Is this how they react to the worsening weather, or has a mass withdrawal begun? A friend from near Kiev wrote to me - everyone disappeared somewhere, a neighbor was poisoning trees with something...

I don't know what kind of bees will get in there. Now, if they deign to settle in such a place , then we will determine.
In bad weather, mine also flew, and it seems that neighbors poison beetles on trees and bees suffer.

I caught a fly today.
Or a parasite or mimic for protection from predators. I made half a hundred eggs in a box. Throw it away or dump it on what?

I was actually asking about the type of osmium, not the hive.

Ilya, the photo shows that these are O. bicornis nests.