Solitary Bees
Known for their production of beeswax and honey, bees are related to both ants and wasps and they are considered flying insects. They belong to the Apoidea superfamily of insects. In total, there are between seven and nine main families of bees, and in them there are around 20,000 different species. Many of these species aren’t described properly right now, and the number of species might actually be larger. The only continent where you can’t find bees is Antarctica. Any other habitat on our planet has them, and they are essential due to their role of pollination of plants with flowers.
Some types of bees of the solitary type are the Alfalfa leafcutter, the Eastern carpenter, the hornfaced bee and the orchard mason bee. These solitary bees are different from the species you’re accustomed to because all the females are fertile, so they have their own nests, which they build for themselves. Solitary bees species don’t have any worker bees, as they don’t make honey or beeswax. While typical bee diseases can’t touch them (Varroa mites or acarine), they have pests, diseases and parasites of their own.
These types of bees are important for their pollination role, which they do to get pollen to use as food. In many cases, nectar will be mixed with pollen and the end result has the consistency of a paste. In some cases, species of bees that are solitary have structures built in their bodies that are quite advanced at carrying pollen. There are some species that are being cultured right now, for use in commercial pollination.
In many cases, solitary bees will be oligoleges, which means that they only get pollen from a limited number of types of plants (while regular bees don’t care what type of pollen they get). As for the nectar, bees don’t discriminate on the plants where they get it from. Other types of specialist pollinators are those species that instead of gathering pollen, gather floral oils. Male orchid bees for example, will use orchids to get aromatic compounds, so that makes them great pollinators for this type of plant. There are some rare cases where a certain plant is pollinated by a single type of bee, and some plants are close to extinct, because they don’t have pollinators anymore.
These bees that are solitary will build their nest in twigs, hollow reeds, wood holes or even in underground tunnels. Usually, the female bee will make a cell where they place a single egg, plus provisions to feed the larva that will come out. It seals off the cell. Their nest will usually have many cells built, each with their own larva inside. After they lay eggs, they leave it alone, in many cases dying after they create their nest. Usually males will appear first, and once the females show up, they will be ready to mate. Gardeners started providing boxes for nests, and this practice becomes more popular all the time. Usually a solitary bee will not sting or will do it only when attacked.
Even though female bees that are solitary will make their own nest, in some cases they will build nests in the same area as others of their species, which makes people think that these bees can be sociable. Since they’re not colonies, these areas where solitary bees gather are called aggregations.