Has to Bee nature's way sometimes...

Paul Iddon

Not every bee makes it. Nature has it's way.

The wife sent me a text saying she had found a wasp(!) that was really really docile on a towel on the washing line, and she could see the pollen on it, so she put it in a tub for me to photograph when I got home from work...

So when I got home a short while later, I looked and instantly realised why it was docile, and that the pollen really was. In fact, it was already dead, and the "pollen" was of course, why...














Paul.

Lord Vetinari

Lovely shots and interesting captures- that's a lot of mites !
The bee is a female mason bee Osmia rufa.
Brian v.

e6filmuser

Mites. My first reaction (general body colour and texture, long, shiny hairs) was that they are tyroglyphid mites (Astigmata) but the mouthparts look too sturdy and the broad-shoulders appearance is wrong. Any chance of a very close look?

Harold

Paul Iddon

Thanks Brian. Poor thing had no chance of survival.


Harold nearest clear crop I could get:



Paul.

e6filmuser

Paul,

Some angles are deceptive. I think they are tyroglyphids. These are the ones which often form the resistant hypopi for phoretic travel but these have not.

It is, by a long way, the heaviest load I have seen.

Harold