#woolcarder bee

[celestialmacros]

An Oblong Woolcarder Bee "carding wool," or gathering plant fibers to line her nest. She pulls fibers from the plant and holds them in a ball against her abdomen, and then, with some calisthenics, tightens up the ball before flying off with it in her mandibles.

Oblong Woolcarder Bee (Anthidium oblongatum)

July 15, 2023

Southeastern Pennsylvania

[onenicebugperday]

@elgebar submitted: Extremely! Round! Bee! (or something pretending to be an extremely round bee). Located on Long Island, USA.

Lol that sure is round. Looks like a woolcarder bee!

[jonnysinsectcatalogue]

Oblong Woolcarder Bee - Anthidium oblongatum

Now this was most expected! Previously when I found this specie of Bee, or others that appear similar to it, they were hovering around some flowers in attempt to drive away other pollinations from their "territory" through merciless charging. Alternatively, one might guess that this specie would find some suitable leaves for their nest (within a wooden cavity) among the plants that they missing and cut pieces out of them and turn them into nest furnishing. After all, this is a Leafcutting Bee! However, for this specie, today we get to observe the reality of the situation; members of the Anthidium genus don’t cut leaves to use as nesting materials. Instead, they collect something far more important and labor intensive. Look closely at the underside of this Bee and you'll notice that she's carrying something large beneath her. The object isn't an egg sac, and while that's not a behavior typically associated with Bees, that would be amazing to see in the wilderness. The mass carried beneath this Bee's underside is in fact, a collection of fibers and hairs that she has gathered from plants and rolled into a ball.

When the hardworking Bee has enough material gathered and rolled up, the ball will be brought back to the nest so that it can be made into lining for the nest and individual cells! The accepted term for the massed plant material is "vegetable wool", which is obtained from the Bee scraping it off of a plant's leaves or form using her mandibles. After it is detached, the fibers are collected and rolled into a ball; the process is known as "carding", hence the name, "Woolcarder Bee." This individual has amassed a large ball, and while large it can be easily held and transported thanks to the Bee's strong mandibles and legs. While it may not be apparent at first glance due to the size of the individual fibers, but they were indeed collected from the underside of the plant that this Bee was buzzing around. Looking at pictures 2, 4 and 5, the scraping and folding of fibers can be seen with a simple zoom in. Moreover, in Picture 1 it can be seen exactly where she shaved away the plant's fibers! What an industrious animal. Had I noticed the fluff ball being made while taking these pictures, I would've followed the Bee to her nest to see her construction process. That's a lesson for future observations of all manner of insects: pay attention to the insects that you find and also what activities occur throughout their day.

Pictures were taken on July 1, 2024 with a Google Pixel 4.

[drhoz]

#2640 - Anthidium manicatum - European Woolcarder Bee

Accidentally introduced to many other parts of the world, where they've spread rapidly. They arrived in Aotearoa in 2006.

Best known for their habit of collecting the hair off particularly woolly plants like Lamb's-ear (Stachys sp.) - I'm pretty sure it's on a Stachys in the photo. The bundle is then carried back to their burrow to line the cell walls.

Unusually for a bee, the males are larger than the females, and highly territorial. This is probably related to the fact that the females are polyandrous, and the eggs are more likely to be fertilised by the sperm of her most recent mate. This is a strong evolutionary pressure to produce bees that can monopolise all the mates in their area, by driving off any rivals.

Lake Tekapo, Aotearoa New Zealand.

[onenicebugperday]

@smolskye submitted: hello mister bugperday! I was walking in Portland OR USA and found a wide variety of bees and wasps at these flowers. I recognized and searched up some western yellow jackets, euro honeybees, and multiple bumblebee species, but I can't find anything about this fuck off HUGE unit that accompanied them! i would say it was about 1 to 1.5 inches long. it was buzzing around so fast I could barely take a photo, and it kept landing on top of the other bugs, but it didn't seem to hurt them. do you have any idea what this large fellow might be? thank you!!

Love the implication that my first name is Onenice and my last name is Bugperday.

Anyhoo this fella looks like a European woolcarder bee, Anthidium manicatum. Despite the name they are indeed found in your location. They're called wooldcarders or carder bees because they strip the hairs off of the leaves like the ones you see in your photo and use it as nesting material. Males are also super territorial, and will attack any bugs in their territory, which is probably the behavior you saw with him landing on other bugs. Males can't sting, but they can bite and harass!

[robotblues]

shot his load and then flew directly into my phone