Vespidae: undergraduate bees, usually called wasps or wasps, are medium to large in size, with smooth body surface and colored spots. Taste is well developed. Wings are long and narrow, and they fold vertically when they are at rest. The abdomen generally does not contract, showing a handle shape. Wasps have simple social organizations, including queen bees, drones and worker bees. It often builds a paper bell-shaped or layered hive and lives collectively on it. Adult bees mainly prey on LEPIDOPTERA insects, so they are also important natural enemies.
bee
Bees belong to Hymenoptera and Apiidae. Body length is 8-20 mm, tan or dark brown, with thick hair. The head is almost as wide as the chest. The antenna is knee-shaped, the compound eye is oval and hairy, the mouthparts are chewing and sucking, and the hind feet are powder-carrying feet. Two pairs of membrane wings; The front wing is big, the rear wing is small, and the front and rear wings are connected by wing hooks. The abdomen is nearly oval, with less body hair than the chest and claws at the end of the abdomen. Bees are completely metamorphosed and go through four stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult.
In the bee society, they still live a matriarchal clan life. Among the members of their big family, there is a queen bee (queen bee), a female bee with reproductive ability, responsible for laying eggs and reproducing, and at the same time "ruling" this big family. Although the queen bee has mated, her eggs are not all fertilized. It can give birth to fertilized eggs and develop into female bees (sterile worker bees) according to the needs of large families; You can also have a fertilized egg and develop it into a drone later. When the extended family members of this group multiply too much, resulting in crowding, they should be grouped. The process of grouping is as follows: worker bees make a special hive-Wangtai, where queen bees give birth to fertilized eggs; After the larvae hatch, worker bees give them special treatment and feed them with highly nutritious royal jelly made in their bodies. After the larva develops into an adult, it becomes a new queen bee with reproductive ability. The new queen bee leads some worker bees to fly to form a new bee colony. Oriental bee. Both China bees and Italian bees are beneficial insects, and they are widely raised. In the process of reproduction, the new queen bee will be artificially grouped after birth, otherwise a queen bee will lead a group of worker bees to leave the hive and fly away, thus losing the colony. Beekeepers artificially produce royal jelly. In fact, they artificially made some queen bee platforms and put them in beehives for the queen bee to lay eggs. When the larvae hatch, the worker bees feed them royal jelly, and the beekeeper will take it out. In fact, beekeepers use deception, which shows that even smart bees are sometimes deceived.
There are many drones, and a group may be nearly a thousand. The only duty of the drone is to mate with the queen bee. When mating, the queen bee flies out of the nest, and the whole group of drones chases after it. It's called marital escape. The queen bee's marriage and mate selection are carried out through flight competitions, and only the winner can become a spouse. After mating, the drone's genitals fall off in the queen's genitals. At this time, the drone has completed its lifelong mission and died. When the males who failed to mate with the queen bee returned to the nest, they only ate and drank, and could not collect honey, becoming redundant idlers in the colony. After a long time, Feng Gong will deport them. Beekeepers don't want to keep too many drones in the bee colony and consume honey, so they are artificially eliminated. From this perspective,
Worker bees are the largest in this group. The number of worker bees kept by beekeepers in a colony varies with seasons, generally 2 1500 worker bees. Worker bees are the most industrious. The song "Little bees are busy all day, picking flowers and making honey" only refers to worker bees. In addition to collecting powder to make honey, building nests, feeding larvae, cleaning the environment and defending bees. It is also the task of worker bees. From spring to late autumn, bees are busy every day during flowering. Winter is the only short leisure time for bees. However, the cold weather and the low temperature in the hive are not good for bees, because bees are warm animals, and their body temperature changes with the temperature of the surrounding environment. The clever little bee came up with a special way to resist the cold. When the temperature in the hive is as low as 65438 03℃, they are close to each other in the hive and form spherical clusters. The lower the temperature, the closer the colony is, which reduces the surface area and increases the density of bee colony to prevent excessive cooling. According to the measurement, in the coldest time, the temperature in the bee ball can still be maintained at around 24℃. At the same time, they also use more honey and exercise to generate heat to raise the temperature in the nest. In cold weather, the surface temperature of the bee ball is lower than the center of the ball. At this time, the bees on the surface of the good ball drill into the center of the ball, while the bees in the center of the ball move outward. They took care of each other, changed places repeatedly and spent the cold winter. How do they eat honey stored in beehives during wintering and balling? Smart bees have their own tricks. They don't need to break up the spheres and climb out to eat separately, but pass them on to each other to get food. In this way, the temperature in the ball can be kept constant or changed little, which is conducive to safe wintering.
All social insects originated from solitary insects. Representatives of all stages from solitary to complex society can be found in bees today.
Bumblebee-Primary Insect Society: Bumblebee has a low social rank. Every autumn, the female will mate with the drones of other bees, and then the drones will die. The next spring, many female bees build nests together and lay eggs in the nest room. At the same time, these females are fighting with each other for the highest rank. When the dominant society is built, the highest-ranking female bees monopolize the right to lay eggs. If other female bees don't fly away, they can only be in a subordinate position, and their eggs can even be eaten by the highest-ranking female bees. They can take part in the work of feeding larvae, or they can "idle away" and not work. In autumn, the highest-ranking female bees give birth to unfertilized eggs and develop into drones. At this time, both the non-working females and males fly in and mate with the males and females in other hives respectively. The male bees die, the female bees spend the winter and build nests the next year. Therefore, the wasp society is not permanent. In winter, bees will disintegrate, and the next spring, female bees will nest and lay eggs again. There is no clear division of labor in the bee colony, and all females have the ability to lay eggs, but most females are not allowed to lay eggs because of their dominant rank.
Bee colony in bee society is much larger than wasp colony. The largest number of bees is worker bees, which can be as many as 30000 ~ 40000. There are few males, only one female, the queen bee. The genetic composition of worker bees and queen bees is the same. After the fertilized eggs laid by the queen bee develop into larvae, if the larvae mainly receive nectar with high sugar content and low protein content, they will develop into worker bees. If the larvae receive special food, that is, royal jelly rich in protein, they will develop into a queen bee with strong reproductive ability. Drones develop from unfertilized eggs and are haploid.
Worker bee: fertilized eggs hatch into white larvae in a hexagonal honeycomb for about 3 days. After about 6 days, the larvae grow into pupae. After 12d, it appeared and bit through the wax cap. The earliest job of newborn worker bees is to clean the hive and feed the larvae. Worker bees have glands secreting royal jelly on their heads. About a week later, the wax glands in the abdomen of worker bees developed and began to build nests. Another task of this issue of worker bees is to "watch the door". They often wander inside and outside the entrance of the hive, using tentacles to identify newcomers. If the visitor is a bee in this nest, put it in if the signal matches. If it is an exotic bee or other animal such as wasp, they will kill it by stabbing it, and worker bees often die because they lose their stings. This is a very prominent "altruistic" behavior. Three weeks later, worker bees began to go out to collect nectar and pollen, and died of old age after about six weeks.
Queen bee: The fertilized nest that will develop into queen bee will be produced in a special hive or "queen bee platform" which is larger and higher than the general hive. The queen bee can secrete pheromones, inhibit the ovarian development of worker bees, and prevent worker bees from developing into queen bees. At the same time, it can also prevent worker bees from building palaces and cultivating new queens. If the queen bee dies or disappears and the pheromone disappears, the worker bees will soon find out and expand the hive into a tall palace, and at the same time feed the larvae in the palace with royal jelly to cultivate a new queen bee.
Drone: I can't collect honey, and it's useless after mating. In autumn, he was stabbed to death by a worker bee or expelled from the nest and died.
Nesting: In spring, bloom is lush and rich in food, producing a large number of new worker bees. At this time, the pheromone secreted by the queen bee is not enough to control the whole nest. Worker bees built palaces and provided royal jelly for the larvae in the palaces, so a new queen bee was born. At this time, bees can be divided into two groups. The old queen bee led some worker bees to fly away and live under the treetops or eaves. When she finds a suitable area, she will build a new nest, continue to lay eggs and rebuild a lush bee colony. When the old queen bee flew away, the new queen bee in the palace had grown up. It flew out of the hive under the protection of some worker bees and began to "travel and get married". During the flight, the queen bee secretes pheromones to lure hybrid drones to mate.
The queen bee only "travels and marries" once in her life, but she can mate with many drones. After the queen bee returned to the hive, her only task in life was to lay eggs. The sperm received by the queen bee in a flight is stored in the seminal vesicle and can be used for 5 to 7 years.
Bee language: bee honey collection efficiency is extremely high. This is mainly because bees are endowed with a very complicated communication system. This was discovered by the famous Austrian biologist Karl von Frisch after 20 years of hard research. This complex communication system refers to the "dance" of bees on the surface of the hive, which contains a variety of information such as the distance and direction of honey sources, the nature and quality of food. When a worker bee finds a rich honey source, it will "dance" on the vertical surface of the hive to inform other bees in the hive of its discovery. If the food is nearby (within 60 meters), bees will dance "round dance".
The hive is dark. Bees can't see the dance, but they can follow the dancer's footsteps and flap their wings to feel the information. At the same time, they can taste the food they picked from the dancer's mouth, and smell the aroma of honey source and the volatile oil secreted by its abdomen. After receiving the message, these followers left the nest and flew in all directions. After finding the honey source, they fly back to the nest with nectar or pollen, store the collected materials in a small room and dance around to attract more associates to collect them. If the honey source is far away (more than 80m), bees will dance "wagging their tails".
The dance steps form a horizontal figure of eight. When bees dance along the vertical axis, they will make a clear sound and their bellies will swing to both sides. When dancing, the angle between the vertical axis of the word ∞ and the gravity line is equal to the angle between the shortest flight direction of sunlight and the honey source.
The number of dances and the intensity of movements can also provide information on the richness and sugar content of honey sources. The behavior of bees is rich and varied, but almost all of them are congenital and determined by heredity.
How do bees communicate with each other?
Although animals don't have such a language as humans, they can send out various signals to communicate. Bees use "dance" as a signal to indicate where the flowers are. Bees can also change the angle of dance and fly up or down to indicate the direction of honey source.
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