The Bee that Lived in a Snail Shell

Talking of bees...

This morning's The Living World reported on the tiny bullet-shaped Osmia bicolor, a sort of mason bee which seeks out empty snail shells for a nest. 

This was another delightful programme from Trai Anfield.

Trai was walking around the chalk downlands of Dorset with naturalist John Walters. And not just any old chalk downland. 

No, they were investigating the hillside directly above the the Cerne Abbas giant [the famous chalk figure that depicts the Palestinian Authority president in a decidedly frisky mood].

The scene sounded lovely. They were investigating a very steep, south-raising slope full of yellow cowslips and vibrant purple orchids, with a horny chalk giant below them and bees buzzing above them. 

John put out some empty snail shells on the slope last year, and awaited developments. The bees nested in them.

So why do Osmia bicolor bees nest in empty snail shells? 

Well, other mason bees love crevices and snail shells, especially on chalk downlands, are the closest things to a crevice that a bee can find. Plus there are plenty of them around.

Males hide in the shells if the weather gets too cold, but they don't stay for long as they are very short lived. The longer-lived females nest in them. 

Osmia bicolor are solitary bees. Even if they nest quite close, they only interact for mating purposes and that closeness is out of necessity rather than choice.

The females lay their egg in the snail shell then start camouflaging it, giving it a green, speckled appearance. They do that after mating. 

They select a nest site [snail shell], build a little nest, collect pollen to feed their soon-to-be larvae (using the special hair of the underside of their abdomen for extra efficiency), then lay one egg and surround it with mashed-up leaves, then collects rubble, soil and more mashed-up leaves to pack the remaining spaces, tightly seal it, turn he shell over so that the entrance is pointing downwards and then make an elaborate 5-6 cm long tent of grass ["a little wigwam of grass stems"] to hide the shell. It only takes a hour or so to do.

Trai described the result as "a work of art" that "just blends in beautifully".

Unlike many other insects,  Osmia bicolor lays a mere 10-15 eggs in its lifetime. They may lay a handful each year, each in a separate snail shell. They have a high survival rate. 

This represents a rather typical pattern in reproduction - you either spend a lot of time and effort to keep a few offspring safe and sound, or you produce so many that losing a few doesn't matter much. 

John said that there's been little study of them, little written about them. There aren't any identification guides for solitary bees yet.

Still, there's The Living World - and this blog!

Global Swarming

It's been far too sunny today to bother with the BBC and its bothersome bias, but I did listen to Paddy's Saturday PM. 

It discussed (1) the abducted girls in Nigeria ('Now look 'ere, Goodluck!'), (2) the Co-op ('Don't mention the Labour Party, Pike!'), (3) Nigel Farage's 'car crash' interview on LBC ('He's doomed! DOOMED!'), (4) liberalising cannabis in the U.S. ('Stupid Republican dinosaurs!') and (5) bee swarms ('Don't panic! 'Don't panic!')

Paddy talked about the UKIP story with John Major's press secretary, Sheila Gunn.

She wasn't impressed with the UKIP spin doctor's intervention in that interview, or with Nigel Farage - and Paddy was in no hurry to talk her out of either of those feelings. 

Now (and only fans of The Thick of It will get this) if Tony Blair had Malcolm Tucker as his press secretary and Gordon Brown had Jamie McDonald, then Sir John Major surely had Terri Coverley, as played (with great panache) by Sheila Gunn. She comes across as the sort of press secretary John Major was bound to have - a nice, decent, loyal lady who probably likes dogs (the kind of person Alistair Campbell eats with fava beans and a nice Chianti.)

Here's a taste of their conversation today:

Paddy: I wonder if you can just offer us an anecdote, when things were pretty bleak for you and you made a mistake. It's difficult...I hope you never ask me to do that, although the list is long...but would you like to offer something up from when you...I mentioned the pressure you must have been under. Do you remember doing something that you shouldn't have?

Sheila: Oh dear, yes. I made an awful lot of mistakes, I'm afraid. And remember if you're actually dealing with a journalist day by day and they're asking you, 'What does the Prime Minister think of this, that or the other?', I didn't always get it right, obviously, and occasionally John Major would say the next day, "Oh, it's interesting, you know, that this is my view on this subject", whereas I'd actually given his view without giving him the chance to clear it with him. So, no, I'm certainly not blameless in that.

I was mainly there for the swarming bees though. 

A chap called Ted (with a Polish-sounding surname that I'm struggling with) told us that there are a lot of swarms around at the moment but that we shouldn't panic if they engulf us on the high street.

Bees are not aggressive when they're swarming. They are in such a state that they can barely bend their abdomen to give us a sting even if they wanted to (which they don't). Plus, they've no hive or young to protect. 

So don't panic and don't start waving your arms around if you are ever engulfed in a swarm of bees. Just close your eyes and stay calm.

Yes, it's that simple, and I for one would quietly whistle 'The Sun Has Got His Hat On' (taking care to barely move my lips) whilst waiting for them to move on. 

Swarming is natural, said Ted. Bees have been doing it for 150 million years (as well as falling in love.)

So there you go. You now know how to deal with a swarm of bees if you ever find yourself surrounded by one whilst going to SpecSavers.