This Bee Makes Stunning Flower Nests

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By Heather Callaghan, Editor

Most bees are colonial collectivists. Heck – a bee hive is the quintessential metaphor for a collective group. If someone is behaving from a “hive mind” – well that image says a lot!

But one species of bee stands out as a renegade – a rather aesthetic renegade at that.

The osmia avosetta handcrafts beautiful petal nests to protect its young.

Design Bloom reports:

without the help of other worker bees, mating females of this species have taken it upon themselves to make these colourful abodes to protect their young.

over a day or two mother bees source various petals to create the nests before planting a single bee egg inside. the bees do this by biting off the petal from the flower and flying it back to where the nest is burrowed. between each layer a thin coating of mud is applied before the finished nest is entirely sealed. then after a few days the egg hatches into a larva that spins itself a cocoon inside.

Dr. Jerome Rozen of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) said:

It’s not common for bees to use parts of plants for nests.

There’s a demand for biologists to know bees nowadays…they are the foremost animal pollinators of plants, and tremendously important for maintaining ecosystems — not only crops but also for conservation.

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Lost at E Minor reported:

Rozen and his colleagues first discovered the nesting behaviour in Turkey in 2009. On the same day, another team studying bees in Iran made the same exact discovery. Both research groups co-published their findings.

Have you ever seen this type of nest? Sound off below!

Images courtesy of phillyhoneyfest, Jerome Rozen/american museum of natural history

This article (This Bee Makes Stunning Flower Nests) was created by and appeared first at Natural Blaze. It can be reshared with attribution but MUST include link to homepage, bio, intact links and this message. 

Heather Callaghan is an independent researcher, writer, speaker and food freedom activist. She is the Editor and co-founder of NaturalBlaze as well as a certified Self-Referencing IITM Practitioner. She has written over 1,200 articles and wants readers to empower themselves to take back their health!

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