[Pollinator] [beemonitoring] Male carder bees wound native bees?

[André]

Hello,
 
Nice observation.

I observe exactly the same behavior at the Montreal Botanical Garden, Quebec, Canada, in 1999 and 2000. The data is in a paper on magazine Fabreries (in French) PDF.

Payette, A. 2001. Première mention de l'abeille adventice Anthidium manicatum (Linné) (Hymenoptera : Megachilidae) pour le Québec. Fabreries 26 : 87-97.
André Payette. Insectarium de Montréal, 4581, rue Sherbrooke Est, Montréal (Québec) H1X 2B2
 
Abstract. The author reports the first record of the wool-carder bee Anthidium manicatum (Linnaeus) (Megachilidae) for the province of Quebec based on specimens Observed in the Montreal Botanical Garden. He gives data on host plant species, phenology and territorial behavior of males. The author reports aussi icts occurrence in eastern Ontario.



... Section on the behavior of males

A male Anthidium manicatum in a colony Satureja montana 1.5 m2, violently hunt insects in their various groups foraging territory and particularly Apoidea. Among bees push these species: Bombus affinis, B. griseocollis, B. impatiens, B. rufocinctus (Apidae) Chalicodoma campanulae, Coelioxys octodentata, Megachile frigida, M. rotundata, M. texana (Megachilidae) Agapostemon texanus, Halictus ligatus and Lasioglossum (s.-g. Dialictus spp.) (Halictidae).

In 1999, I attended the attacks that wounded three of these bees. On each occasion, the dominant male severed with its mandibles one of costal forewing veins of a bee attacked, making it unable to continue its flight. Injured bees were B. griseocollis (female), M. texana (female) and Coelioxys octodentata (female).
 Bonne journée, André Payette


Date: Thu, 14 May 2015 15:26:37 -0500
From: bernhap2 at slu.edu
To: john.plant3 at hotmail.com
CC: j.alcock at asu.edu; beemonitoring at yahoogroups.com; pollinator at lists.sonic.net; dyanega at ucr.edu; renzongxin at mail.kib.ac.cn
Subject: Re: [Pollinator] [beemonitoring] Male carder bees wound native bees?


Thank you, John>  Did you watch the video?  It looks like those males are defending flowering clumps.  So, they don't stab.  They rip or damage wings, very interesting.
Peter
On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 9:18 PM, John Plant <john.plant3 at hotmail.com> wrote:




We found that 
territorial males of Anthidium manicatum would attack most any flower-visitor to 
Stachys byzanthina, especially honeybees. Some attacks resulted in the death of 
the intruder, mostly honeybees and occasionally a bumblebee. Long-tongued 
solitary bees such as Megachile and Anthophora were generally too nimble. 
They did not 
kill by puncture; rather the base of one of the forewings gets torn or broken, 
making the victim unable to fly.
The species 
only shows territorial behavior if the flowers it defends are numerous and 
clumped together.
John 
Plant


 

From: mailto:beemonitoring-noreply at yahoogroups.com 

Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2015 13:23
To: Peter 
Bernhardt ; Bee United ; Pollinator List-serv ; 任宗昕 
; John Alcock 

Subject: Re: [beemonitoring] Male carder bees wound native 
bees?
 
  





On 5/13/15 6:12 AM, Peter Bernhardt bernhap2 at slu.edu [beemonitoring] 
wrote:

  
  


  
  
  
  
  Male bees lack stings for obvious reasons but these males evolved a 
  "sting" much the same way a panda has evolved a thumb.  It's the old 
  natural selection fiddling with spare parts story publicized by the late S.J. 
  Gould.  Does anyone know of other life-histories of male bees with such 
  "pseudo stingers?" 
 
  
Aggressive 
territorial males occur at least in Anthidium and Megachile (e.g., the aptly 
name M. pugnata), though only Anthidium (some but not all species) have actual 
"prongs" that could be used to puncture. It is perhaps not a coincidence that 
Anthidium is one of the few bee genera where males are substantially larger than 
females. The ability of manicatum to wound other bees has been noted in the 
literature and anecdotally for many years; I'm not aware of any other species 
known to do this.

Peace,
-- 
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
             http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82

__._,_.___



Posted by: Doug Yanega <dyanega at ucr.edu> 




  
  
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