Amegilla dawsoni facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Amegilla dawsoni |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Scientific classification |
The Amegilla dawsoni, also known as the Dawson's burrowing bee, is a type of bee. These bees live in large groups, sometimes thousands of them, in dry, flat areas called claypans in Western Australia. They are known for their long tongues and belong to a group of bees called Amegilla.
This bee is one of Australia's biggest bee species. It can grow up to 23 mm (about 1 inch) long and have a wingspan of 45 mm (about 1.7 inches). Most of their bodies are covered in brown fur. Male bees have brown fur, while females have brown and white fur. They look a bit like Australian Carpenter bees.
Even though many bees live close together, each female bee builds her own nest. They dig their nests into the ground. Inside, they create separate little rooms for their babies. Each female bee only lays eggs once during her breeding season.
Male Dawson's burrowing bees come in two sizes: large ones called majors and smaller ones called minors. Major males are very active and fight to mate with females. Minor males, who make up most of the male bees, wait on the edges of the nesting area. They mate with females who manage to fly away without mating with a major male.
These bees only eat from four types of plants found in the deserts of Western Australia. Because food can be hard to find, these bees tend to mate with any other bee in the population. This means their genes mix very well across different groups.
Contents
About Dawson's Burrowing Bees
What Kind of Bee Is It?
The Amegilla dawsoni bee is part of the Amegilla group. This group is known as "long-tongued bees." The Amegilla group is the second largest in its family, with over 250 different species. These bees are found in Europe, Africa, and Asia. One special group of Amegilla bees lives only in Australia.
How Do They Look?
This bee is one of the largest bees in Australia. It has dark wings and looks similar to Carpenter bees. An adult bee can be up to 23 mm long. Its wings can spread out to 45 mm wide. Both male and female bees are very furry. Their lower faces stick out a bit and don't have much fur. This part of their face can be light yellow to dark brown.
Building a Home
How Nests Are Built
Even though many bees live close together, each female Dawson's burrowing bee builds her own nest. Sometimes, there can be as many as 10,000 nests in one area!
To build a nest, the female bee digs straight down into clay or hard dirt. She digs a tunnel that is about 15 to 35 centimeters deep. Then, she turns and digs a tunnel sideways. In this sideways tunnel, she digs down again to make special rooms for her babies. She adds more rooms as she lays more eggs. Sometimes, she even stacks two rooms on top of each other!
Inside each room, she puts a layer of wax. Then, she fills the room with a wet mix of nectar and pollen from four different types of plants. After that, she lays an egg on top of the food. Finally, she seals the room with mud. She keeps doing this until all her eggs are laid.
When Do Bees Emerge?
These bees fly and mate from late winter to early spring. They only have one group of babies each year. The babies stay in their nests until the next winter. Then, they come out and start the new flight and mating season.
Male bees usually come out of their nests before the females. Also, the smaller male bees (minors) tend to come out before the larger male bees (majors). This might be because smaller males need to emerge earlier to avoid fighting with bigger males for mates. Male bees can keep emerging for several weeks. This means there are always new males and females appearing at the same time.
Nesting Challenges
Sometimes, a female bee will try to enter another bee's nest if the owner is away. If the owner comes back, there's usually a quick fight. The owner almost always wins and kicks out the intruder. Being bigger doesn't seem to help the intruding bee win.
Why do they do this? The intruding bee might be looking for a nest where the owner has died or disappeared. This saves the intruding bee a lot of energy because she doesn't have to dig a new nest herself. If the owner returns, the intruder leaves quickly to find another empty nest.
Mating Habits
How Bees Mate
There are two main ways male Dawson's burrowing bees mate, depending on their size.
- Major males (the bigger ones) fly around the areas where female bees are emerging from their nests. They often fight each other to mate with females.
- Minor males (the smaller ones) wait on the edges of these areas. They try to mate with females who manage to fly away without mating with a major male.
Even though minor males make up 80% of the male bees, about 90% of females mate with the major males.
When a male finds a female ready to mate, he gets on her back. He then carries her to a nearby plant to mate. Mating happens quickly. Females rarely mate more than once. This makes males compete fiercely for a chance to mate.
Mixing Genes
Amegilla dawsoni bees are known for their genes mixing very well across the whole population. This means that any bee is likely to mate with any other bee, even if they come from different areas. This is quite rare for bees, as usually, groups of bees have different genes.
One reason for this might be that food sources are spread out unevenly in the dry Australian desert. When flowers bloom, bees from hundreds of kilometers away might gather in the same areas to find food. This helps them mix and mate with each other.
What They Eat
Female Dawson's burrowing bees have long tongues. They use them to collect nectar from flowers without having to go deep inside the flower. They get nectar from only four main types of plants. They will even go to these specific plants even if there are other easy-to-reach food sources nearby.
These plants include:
- Cassia
- Eremophila
- Solanum
- Trichodesma
Other Species They Interact With
Parasites
The Dawson's burrowing bee has a parasite called the Miltogramma rectangularis fly. These flies are cleptoparasites, which means they steal food. The female Miltogrammine fly lays her tiny larvae on a female bee. When the bee goes into her nest, she accidentally drops the fly larvae near her own babies. The fly larvae then eat the food meant for the developing bee babies.
Scientists think that these food-stealing parasites might have made the Dawson's burrowing bees produce more smaller males (minors). This is because smaller males need less food to grow, which helps the bee population survive when food is stolen by parasites.
Images for kids
-
A Dawson's burrowing bee.
See also
In Spanish: Amegilla dawsoni para niños
