As the smallest animal among the king of Asian killers, how toxic is the Japanese bumblebee? 2, slender wings, fat body bumblebee, the mystery of the aerodynamics of take-off; 3, bumblebee kills rats? 4. How is the group wisdom of 100,000 bees reflected? 5, bumblebee work 18 hours a day, patronize 1,000 flowers to collect nectar, 5 times more diligent than bees, why not labor model? 6. What animals compete to imitate bumblebees? What is the magic of bumblebee?
In the blossoming Kamikochi Valley of the Hida Mountains, there is the largest wasp on earth, that is, the largest wasp, which is called the Japanese Hornet, also known as the Golden Ring Wasp. They cover the whole of Japan, and this valley is most loved by bumblebees. There are about 200 different species of bumblebees, distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere. In Asia, the distribution of bumblebees ranges from India to Japan. Like the Snow Monkeys, Bumblebees can make their home at an altitude of 2,500 meters above sea level in the Hida Mountains and build their armies, thanks to the warmth of their fur.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="01" > the Queen of the Empire recovered in the freeze</h1>
The warm sun melted the snow and ice, and the green grass trembled and crawled out of the ground. In a cave 20 centimeters below the ground, a bumblebee named He Xiangu woke up from hibernation. Now, the moisture and ice crystals brought about by the slow melting of the snow are a mortal threat to it, it can no longer stay underground, it needs warmth to safely end the hibernation period.
The Japanese bumblebee He Xiangu crawled out of the cave
He Xiangu's body was tired and dizzy at this time, and it shook its body and tried to climb out of the hole like a drunk. He Xiangu desperately needed sunshine and warmth, and the mouth of the cave had been blocked by the fallen leaves of the roots, but the queen bee was still like a small grass sprouting, tenaciously emerging from the ground. Its waist is very thin, while its belly is visibly bulging, which is the rhythm of its imminent mother. This was a great mother who survived the harsh winter alone under the snow of the Hida Mountains in Japan. The glycol in its blood protects it from freezing into ice cubes. It was the only survivor of a swarm, and the rest of the family starved to death last fall because there was no pollen to harvest.
After 6 months of hibernation, Queen Bee He Xiangu must now eat within 24 hours, otherwise she will lose her life. The premise of finding food is that He Xiangu must fly first, and it cannot crawl around on the ground, so as not to become other people's food, and the birds are salivating at it. Let's take off! But this is not possible. Its priority now is to clean its characteristic yellow-and-black fur – it looks like a casual and friendly insect at the moment. However, this is an illusion, and you should not be deceived.
Not all insects fly gracefully and leisurely like dragonflies and hummingbirds, and bumblebees are an aerodynamic mystery that confuses scientists. Its large, round body should be difficult to take off with only a pair of tiny wings. Disappointingly, the queen bee effortlessly took off from the mud and flew crookedly in the air, even using her legs to maintain her balance, and the flying posture was definitely not elegant.
The answer is also very simple, the only reason why it stops in the air is the almost crazy vibration frequency of its wings, up to 200 times per second, and it can make up for it. Its chest has a lot of muscles that power its wings, so it rolls round and round, like a sumo wrestler.
Bumblebee in flight
With the help of smoke, the mystery of bumblebee's aerodynamics is unraveled: when the wings vibrate, the wings quickly twist outward along the torsional axis, the wings are parallel to the ground, and the air is pushed downwards, which creates lift. But that wasn't enough to keep the little fat guy in the navy shirt in the air, and it was only through super slow motion that he could discover the mystery of its flight and how clever it was. At the end of each downward vibration, it quickly twists its wings inwards, and the wings become vertical, so that even when swinging and adjusting the wings upwards, the smoke is pushed downwards, which gives the queen bee double the lift. Of course, human aircraft can't do it anyway, but human engineers are trying to use it to develop more advanced flying machines.
Take off successfully, this is just the beginning. Queen Bee He Xiangu's body temperature rose from zero degrees Celsius to two degrees Celsius, and it was no problem to fly over the snow to forage for flowers. But this foraging path is also full of dangers, in addition to the threat of birds, there are not friendly branches in front of you, if you are not careful, it will cause the tragedy of hitting the wall and committing suicide. Even after repeated caution, the queen bee crashed into a low-hanging pine branch. Even more unfortunately, it also fell into the stream. If it hadn't been killed, it would have drowned.
Fortunately, He Xiangu just hit her head more dizzy. But if it can't reach the riverbank like a swimmer, it will still die, and ice water is also a deadly killer. The Flying Bomb Mountains are in poor conditions, and they do not spare and sympathize with the weak, and only a few bumblebees can survive after hibernating and waking up to see blooming flowers. The soft hairs on the queen bee's body helped it, shielding it from the cold of the ice water. It stubbornly grasped the dry grass in the water and climbed to the shore step by step.
A few hundred meters down the hill, spring is already bouncing around alive, and the flowers are dancing innocently. The queen bee takes off again, and it is not a problem to find enough pollen here. The problem is that the queen bee waist – the bee waist is very thin, can not eat solid food, pollen can only be eaten after brewing honey. Fortunately, in order to attract pollinators, plants also prepare nectar at the bottom of the flowers for bees to suck. However, bumblebee is not a bee, and the straw in its mouth cannot reach the nectar deep inside the flower, because it is too fat and its body is blocked at the flower gate. Now, only the sap that flows out can sustain it and see the sun rising tomorrow.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="02" > the tough mission of bumblebee</h1>
In the first month after waking up, the queen bee is very busy, and He Xiangu has to find a dead tree in the field that sprouts in the spring, or build a new nest in the cave, a new home to prepare for the next season. Of course, ready-made rat holes are naturally the best choice.
The queen bee began a long reconnaissance flight to see if there was a suitable hole around, which could build a large hive and raise offspring safely in the hive, but also to ensure that there was a rich source of honey around the cave, and the honey collection could not be delayed too much. He Xiangu flew at a speed of up to 50 kilometers per hour, and no one could keep up with it, and the killer looked unstoppable. Its large, complex eyes allow it to fly precisely without missing its target.
A weasel who specializes in digging holes
The weasel dug a hidden hole in the ground, which was a good place to hide. It raises children in holes. The cave is also a safe shelter, and when the eagle comes to attack, it can quickly drill into the hole to escape. The queen bee found the opening of the cave hidden under the grass during the high-speed flight, which was a perfect hiding place, and it began to circle above the opening. The weasel knew that He Xiangu did not have good intentions, but this killer could not afford to provoke. The terrible jaws of the Japanese bumblebee are powerful, like a pair of wire-cutting tongs. It is the smallest animal among the king killers of Asia, but it is the behemoth of the insect world, almost as big as a playing card; it is also the most venomous wasp in the world, carrying enough venom to kill humans. A sting can be fatal after a single sting, and a needle over 6 mm long is injected with a complex mixture of enzymes that destroys the tissue cells of the weasel, which is also the ability of other wasps. But bumblebees alone possess a neurotoxin that paralyzes the nervous system of a weasel, and an allergic reaction can cause anaphylactic shock and lead to death. The killer doesn't live long, only 6 months, but during that time it can kill about 70 people — and if anyone wants to provoke it, it's willing to take action. Even if He Xiangu died half a year later, her daughter would inherit the weapon, inherit her mother's business, and continue to use it in the bloody fight.
The weasel family also knew that the queen bee's only purpose was to encroach on their burrows. This vegetarian rodent hates the barbarism of bumblebees and knows how to fight back. The family stuffed the opening of the cave with their flesh and blood, blocking it tightly. This "human wall" makes it impossible for Bumblebee to break through.
The mink that climbs the tree, that is, the sable
However, not only the weasels are the experts who can dig holes in the Hida Mountains, but also the larger weasels and mink rats like to dig holes in the mud for themselves to hide and attract beautiful women. The cave built by the mink rat by the mountains and waters was caught by the queen bee, which is a livable and IKEA place. However, when the robbers are not welcome, the mink rats are on the sidelines. When He Xiangu was about to land, the mink rat preemptively entered the hole. Unbeknownst to her, the queen bee did not dare to take the risk, it was afraid of flying directly into the mouth of the mink. He Xiangu circled for a while and then flew away, continuing to investigate.
A wooden crate prepared by a monk for birds should be a good choice. The queen bee flew to the entrance of the box, and was startled by a few small birds with large mouths. If He Xiangu had slapped the brakes slower and moved further away from the entrance, it would have gone straight into the bird's beak. These young people who don't know the world, but whether you're a bumblebee or a little bee, you can eat everything you can get. The big should not welcome tenants like herself, and the queen bee herself feels unsafe. The road ahead is full of dangers, and Queen Bee He Xiangu can only make other plans.
Mother returning from predatory predation
In the search of He Xiangu, it found a tree hole. But this hole in the big tree has a master. However, the queen bee was attracted by this nest, especially the entrance, a small hole with a hole size of one inch, which was simply a godsend! The queen bee tried to fly in. The owner of the tree hole, the blue-crowned, is on this tree, and it brings back a vegetable worm to the child. It felt a little wrong, why was a bumblebee hovering in front of its house? He Xiangu seemed to be fascinated by this small opening and the things in the cave, and repeatedly spied on it. The queen bee landed on the trunk, and it plucked its big butt and climbed cautiously toward the opening of the hole. The mother was in a hurry, and it flew back into the hole before the bumblebee to ensure the safety of the chicks.
The bumblebee was at the mouth of the cave, and the mother squeezed into the cave without hesitation, and it almost stepped on the bee to enter the hole. Fortunately, the queen bee was not in serious trouble except for the loss of fur. The trampled queen did not give up, and it continued to drill into the hole. The turned around to face the bumblebee, and the mother's instinct made it ignore the danger of being stung by the bumblebee and dying, and it wanted to save its own child. Bumblebee is a rough killer, it will chase after it, he Xiangu went deep into the cave without hesitation. The angry mother caught it with its beak and flew out of the nest, throwing it under the tree. The queen bee fell heavily on the stone, fortunately it was not a large living person, but an insect, not in danger of breaking bones and bleeding, and its wings were intact. The young queen bee failed again, crawling deep into the grass to heal and soothe its wounded heart.
Bumblebee will not be easily defeated, and He Xiangu will continue to fight to the end. It's imperative to find a suitable cave to nest instead of sadness about the past. Like humans, without a house, it is impossible to have children to continue their genes, and it needs shelter from the wind and rain to survive. He Xiangu continued to vibrate her small wings and dragged her bulky body back on the road. It started a long flight again.
Bent on having a home, Queen Bee He Xiangu soon had a new discovery, a not-so-hidden rat hole, which may be the queen bee's last chance. It flew quickly around the cave entrance for several minutes, hoping to attract the attention of the cave owner with the roar of its wings, if there was a master in the cave. There has been no movement, which may be an abandoned hole in the ground - well, go deep inside the tiger's den to see what is going on, and the queen bee crawls in. The inside of the cave was very spacious and deep, and He Xiangu was very nervous, and she kept cleaning the hair on her body to relieve her nervousness.
The rat hole is more than a meter deep, this section of the road is very long, the queen bee really does not know what will happen, what surprises will wait for it at the bottom of the hole. When the mystery was finally revealed, a big rat was busy with personal hygiene, combing itself with its teeth and saliva after it had repaired the cave. It seems that the queen bee will lose her hand with the new house again. In the face of the unhurried rats, at the last moment, He Xiangu seemed to have lost her courage, and it began to retreat. The mouse, who had poor vision, also realized that it had been invaded, sniffed the ground all the way and scouted the enemy.
Bumblebees are devouring rats
The rat caught up, and the queen bee was enraged, and it turned to look directly at the mouse and decided to fight to the death. He Xiangu decided to seize this last chance. The queen bee raised her front legs to clearly remind the mouse, "If you get any closer, I'll give you that moment, enough for you to drink a pot." The rat, the blind idiot, didn't seem to know who his opponent was or understand bumblebee's warning, and it was still approaching the intruder. The queen bee showed a stinger on her ass. The rat smelled He Xiangu's scent, and it finally realized that its enemy was the terrible bumblebee.
The awakened rat, terrified of the queen bee's deadly stinging needle and powerful jaw, retreated. Now, the queen bee gets the chance to enter the rat's living room for a tour. This is not the end of the battle. The rat doesn't give up its burrow easily, it's also a strong fighter, and it's still waiting for an opportunity in a corner of its home. However, it is still a huge challenge for rats to expel the queen bee from their homes. It's a life-and-death struggle for both sides, with both wasps and rats wanting to have a home of their own and have children.
The guest queen swims quickly in the rat hole, and the host mouse does not dare to be sloppy, it also accompanies the guests to come and go at home, and does not dare to be careless. In the end, unexpectedly, the queen bee won the war. It gave the rat a sharp sting when it turned around, injecting a toxin that paralyzed the nerves into the rat. If the rat wants to survive, it can no longer be stinged, and even this time, the consequence is nine deaths. The rat abandoned its home, and it escaped from the mouth of the cave. After winning this cave, the queen bee has the opportunity to establish her own kingdom and start her own glorious life.
After experiencing this protracted battle, He Xiangu also had to take a break, recover her strength, and expel enemies who weighed more than 100 times more than herself, which was of course a difficult battle that tested her physical strength.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="03" > the swarm wisdom of 100,000 bees that determines the future of the colony</h1>
After He Xiangu settled down, she had a goal, and she had to establish an imperial colony after producing a new generation of bumblebees before the end of the summer. In order to achieve its goal, it must first feed an army. Where does the army come from, of course, it can only be born by itself. Now that the queen bee has the shelter of a rat hole, she doesn't have to worry about her child's fragile beginnings being exposed to wind, rain and sun exposure. Bumblebee doesn't build elaborate hives that are as multi-zoned and multi-purpose as bees, it nests in a unique way. He Xiangu produces beeswax, secretes it from the tail, and then transfers the beeswax to the jaw, creating a delicate cup-shaped object. The next step is to lay eggs, which are laid in these small, prepared cups. When the time comes to establish the empire, the queen bee lays her first egg, the second, and another... The queen bee lays one egg in each cup, for a total of fifteen eggs. The prolific queen bee, who had completed her fertilization effects in the previous autumn, was ready to have children before she went on a long winter sleep. These precious bee eggs are wrapped in impenetrable armor formed by several layers of chitin. There is a larva in each egg, and within twenty days, the larvae pupate, feather, and develop into a worker bee in the swarm, becoming the mother's right-hand man.
Throughout the summer, Queen Bee He Xiangu will lay hundreds of eggs. Of course, compared to the tens of thousands of eggs of bees, the family of bumblebees is quite small. Like all mothers, the queen bee bows to her offspring, and her offspring deserve a good start unless it is too unlucky. But He Xiangu was really unfortunate, the storm forced the river to swell, and the rat hole near the riverbank was flooded, and it had to escape. The queen bee cannot take away the larvae, which is a tragic setback. However, the queen bee does not disappear from the valley from then on.
The sun warms the humid landscape, and wild Japanese bees come out to move. Every year, they leave their old nests and regroup in another place, branching out and growing their populations. But the honey in their abdomen doesn't last long, and they have to hurry to find a new home. There was a monk in the valley named Yamaguchi who intended to take advantage of this.
Bees and orchids
Spring is a magical magician, keeping the lonely countryside wild alive, flowers dotting the trees, and insects chirping in the sky. This is also when the monk collects wild bees, and all he needs is a blooming orchid and an empty hive. The hive was erected on a large tree branch outside the temple, and orchids were also resting next to it. Now, the monk just has to wait and wait for the bees to deliver to their doors themselves.
The monk's oriental orchid casts a spell in the wind, and the air is filled with tricks. Soon, wild bees will be enchanted, and it is not the nectar that attracts the bees, but the smell of predators. The bees thought that the orchid's fragrance was emitted by bumblebees, and they were determined to fight and attack the petals, so they fell into the trap and were forced to carry the pollen of the plant to help the orchid pollinate. By mimicking the pheromones of bumblebees, orchids exploit the long-standing antagonism and war between the two insects to complete the process of pollination.
The blooming orchids brought by the monk attracted more bees, and they could not restrain their instincts and only wanted to attack their greatest enemy. Some of the bees were so tired that they turned their attention to the empty hive next to the orchid. In the valley fields, nesting sites are hard to find, so it's a gift. There are many gaps and craters in the hives for them to nest and facilitate access. Like ants, bees communicate and consult with other companions in the hive, using experience to make decisions that are beneficial to the colony, rather than just making it up, especially when they are forming a new colony and looking for a new home. But when bees are looking for a new home, anywhere can be chosen.
After settling down, the vanguard troops who reach the hive release pheromones to guide the other companions, who flock to each other to form a protective swarm. That's enough to make people who encounter the moving army panic. Almost all of the bees have come here, like a whole swarm of bees building a nest. A smile appeared on the monk's face, but he wasn't sure what.
The swarm's immediate move disappointed the monk, and they all withdrew. Maybe the location of the hive is not cool enough, the temperature inside is too high; maybe the hive is not ventilated enough, not large enough, can not accommodate a large family; but maybe the box is too large, and the number of bee colonies is too small to build a nest... Anyway the bees flew away. Yamaguchi remained patient, believing that the power of orchids could defeat bees.
A queen bee surrounded by swarms of bees
As the sun came out and the temperature gradually rose, the industrious little bees began to question their decisions. There aren't many shady places that can be assembled temporarily, and they have to struggle to flap their wings to stay cool. When it's too hot, the bees will release chemical signals that tell the scouts they are upset, allowing the scouts to speed up their progress. The scouts quickly received the message and continued to search for other suitable places. But the sun is getting stronger and stronger, and it's about to die of heat, and they're racing against time, and the scouts, the scouts, are scouting bees, to find a big nest that can hold the entire swarm. The scouts returned to the beehive set up by the yamaguchi monk. It seems nice here, looking around – it's like a feng shui master at the moment, strategizing. It's cool even at midday, and the hives are under the trees at the bottom of the valley, and they're in vents. Scout bees descend and pace on the hives to measure the size, just like human surveyors survey the size of the dwelling and apply for a title certificate.
Finally satisfied, the scout bee flew out of the hive and informed the swarm to move. It returned to the makeshift meeting place and announced the good news in a dance manner. This dance of the bees has a precise meaning, the straight line part of the dance conveys the direction to the new nest; the length of time of the twisting dance indicates the distance of the flight, and twisting for one second is equivalent to flying a kilometer. The other scouts watched the scout bee dance, followed it, and wrote down its instructions, and when it left, the scout bee followed it. The advance troops, guided by scouts, flew directly to the correct location. Now it was the turn of the advance troops to inspect, and they also paced to survey the hives to see if they agreed with the assessment and convened a owners' committee to consider whether the location they found could become a new home. As for how the bees eventually reached a consensus, even the monk himself did not know.
In the end, the bees' advance force agreed, telling the swarm the good news that they had found a new home. This may seem like a strange choice to the monk, but it is actually a very efficient screening process, so that the swarm finally finds a suitable permanent place to live. Therefore, the choice of transportation to the destination is a car or a bicycle, not necessarily a mistake, the destination is the key. The scout flew back to the makeshift gathering place, and it went back and forth through the swarm, flapping its wings for what it called a "buzzing message"—it was officially telling the swarm that it was time to leave. Under its guidance, 100,000 bees clustered with post-bee sugar candy took off in less than two minutes. The swarm of bees followed the scouts to their new home, a gift that the monk had prepared for them. The whole swarm of bees destroyed the entire blooming orchid, and they brought the queen bee. Queen Sugar Sugar passed the acceptance of the new home, the wooden box.
As more and more bees move into their new homes, they release a scent that points the way for all lost companions. Group wisdom is the secret of the survival of the bee army. However, the information of the reconnaissance bee also has its shortcomings and may be misleading, but it is best for the advance force to decide whether to meet everyone's needs, and the future of the bee colony is determined by the collective, not by a small bee.
Scarred orchids testify to the bees' hatred of their mortal enemy, the Japanese bumblebee. Wild bees are aggressive, but they are gentle on humans, and Yamaguchi monks handle them without fear and worry. Now monks are responsible for taking care of the bees, and wild bees are more restless than pig bees and can escape from the hive at any time, and they only stay when they feel safe.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="04" > the life-and-death battle between bees and wasps</h1>
He Xiangu, a queen bee who had escaped from the flood, regrouped, and found a new nesting site in the woods of the cemetery where the monks lived in yamaguchi and became neighbors with the large group of wild bees. It's a conspiracy.
The queen bee had prepared honeypots, each made of white wax filled with pollen, which was her private kitchen and granary. When the weather outside gets worse and it can't fly, it draws nectar from it. The relentless mother began to make small wax cups to hold her child. Inside each cup-shaped honeycomb, there are milky white eggs. What you would never expect is that He Xiangu is a very considerate and good mother, who carefully takes care of each egg, checks them, makes sure that each egg is not harmed, and cleans and organizes them every day. It then produces beeswax, sealing the small cups one by one. Now, the plan to grow the bee colony is officially launched.
Outside the cave, after the cherry blossoms, countless buds bloom one after another. Their small yellow pollen grains attract a variety of insects, whether they can fly or climb. However, this sea of flowers that looked like a snow-white dream, for bumblebee, saw a blue ocean. The flowers of various fruit trees have become an irresistible temptation for insects, and the apricot blossoms and apple blossoms are a special feast. At this time, it is a good time for the queen bumblebee to walk for a leisurely green trip, and the orchards in the valley provide a pure supply of energy. Bumblebees have the fastest color recognition in animals, and it only takes a few milliseconds to find their favorite flowers and pollen. A wild bee is enjoying a bath in dandelion pollen, collecting pollen by the way, it is a well-known representative of hard-working workers, while bumblebees work 18 hours a day to collect pollen in at least 1,000 flowers, and the flowers that collect honey are 5 times that of bees, but they do not receive the "May Day Labor Medal".
Bumblebees who work hard to collect honey
Queen Bee He Xiangu also takes care of her children in a unique way between honey collections. It repeatedly put the jar containing the eggs in its arms, patted and patted, and raised the temperature of the eggs to 35 degrees Celsius, and other insect mothers did not have such a delicate maternal love and true affection.
So far, the wild bees seem to be satisfied with the arrangements at home, and they have started a new life under the command of the queen sugar candy. The Yamaguchi monk finally put his mind at ease. In fact, the little bees are not satisfied with the monk's free hive, but that there is a huge tree hole hidden under the hive, and it is very cool inside. This tree hole makes the hive a decoration and a disguise.
Even after camping in the hive given by the monk, the sugar children did not lose their wild nature, and they still arranged their new homes like intruding into the nests of termites in dead wood, and made their homes in the tree holes under the hives. Worker bees secrete beeswax through abdominal glands, a material produced by the combination of honey and fat, a special material that no other animal can produce. Bees use beeswax to build fortifications, preserve honey and raise offspring. They mix beeswax with resin and use it to build tubular inlets for hives inside hives. The shape of these tubes is usually strange, but no matter how the shape changes, there is a narrow entrance leading to a landing platform, where a team of "guards" is heavily guarded, checking whether each visitor is welcome and accepted.
At the heart of the swarm is the queen sugar candy, which is only a little larger than its subjects, is the sister of all the bees, and lives in the very core of the hive. In the spring, when food reserves are low, worker bees are busy collecting nectar. As with moving houses, worker bees are able to convey complex information to each other, and they have a special method of conveying to each other the most abundant flowering sources, which is called swing dance. The returning scout bee, which had just discovered a new source of honey, was telling its other companions in the nest that it would first climb onto the sisters' backs, swing its belly, and gather the audience. After successfully catching everyone's attention, it began to dance. It uses an "action code" to navigate for its companions, telling other worker bees where they have found the honey source. Like positioning a new home, the duration of its swing dance indicates the distance from the hive to the honey source, and the longer it swings, the farther it is from the flower source; the angle at which it rotates when it dances, informing its companions of the direction in which the flower is located and the angle formed by the sun. Its indication is quite precise, and it is able to accurately locate the location of the honey source 6 kilometers away. Receiving the message, some of the co-workers immediately set off to find the source of honey.
But after all, in the army of 100,000 bees, its dance can only attract the attention of a few workers, and at most hundreds of individuals can communicate with each other. However, this does not matter, they will further release the pheromones and attract more companions to the honey source to collect honey. If many individuals live and work together, they must be able to communicate and be able to effectively convey information and instructions. Bees have these skills, just like humans have mastered the technology of the Internet.
While the sisters brought back large amounts of pollen and nectar with brushes on their stomachs and legs, other worker bees were also making the Great Leap Forward, busy building crisscrossing beams and floors to support the massive "nursery". The resin strengthens the waxy structure and contains antibiotics, which can greatly reduce the chance of young bees getting sick. These will house the larvae's hexagonal single nests, with three-quarters of the space stored in advance with nectar. Worker bees systematically stack the nectar together, exposing it to the air, causing the moisture in it to evaporate, making the nectar sweeter and thicker, and finally turning into honey to feed the child. Then, the obese queen bee came to inspect and determine if she could work properly. As soon as the hive was built and stockpiled, the queen sugar sugar could not wait to lay an egg inside. As soon as the queen bee left, a worker bee immediately sealed the roof with beeswax, and the young bees developed inside. In another separate area of the hive, some special jars are used to store honey. That's why they have to use wax, paper hives can't hold liquid. Every waxy jar had to be filled because they had to rely on these stocks to survive the season of lack of food. In just one season, the worker bees in this colony can collect up to 500 million flowers and brew about 90 kilograms of honey. This food is enough to allow the entire bee colony to survive the coming winter, when even if there is no way to collect honey, there will be enough rations to ensure that a large family can eat and drink.
On another tree in the distance, wild bees also choose to build open hives at the branches of the big tree. Like other bees, they store honey in the hive's hexagonal hive. And bumblebees are infested in this big tree, so what do they use to protect the exposed hive? The answer is "many people are powerful", and the worker bees are close together, forming an impenetrable copper wall at the entrance of the nest, and three-quarters of the worker bees are responsible for the vigilance of the hive.
Bee body structure and sensory organs
Vigilance requires keen judgment, so the little bee evolved to have 5 small eyes separated. At the top of the forehead are 3 monocrystalline eyes, which are dedicated to transmitting information about the brightness of light; below are 2 huge compound eyes, each of which consists of 5000 single crystals. Its eyes process information 4 times faster than humans, and its field of vision is also all-round, not only can see the real color, but also see ultraviolet light, which helps to distinguish between friends and enemies; the little bee also has 2 sensitive antennae, armed with odor receptors and touch, can distinguish between food, family or intruders; the hair network of the whole body, can detect slight vibrations in the air, which constitute a universal alarm system.
When dealing with intruders like bumblebees that burn and rob and protect their nests from destruction, baby bees can be lethal killers, and they have enough venom to make intruders miserable. But more often than not, their weapons are only used against wasps, or wasps, which are much smaller than bumblebees. The wasp is bigger than the small bee, but as long as there is a small stinger in the body, the life of the wasp will come to an end.
Vespas can be said to be the nemesis of small bees, and where there are bees, there are wasps. Near the temple of the Yamaguchi monk, there are also a large number of wasps, which are ordinary wasps, not bumblebees. But the monks were not worried about the bees they endangered themselves. When a wasp approaches the hive, the baby bees secrete a warning pheromone that informs the swarm to start moving. Countless small bees shake their glittering abdomen, and the "buzzing sound" emitted is deafening, which is enough to scare away unsuspecting intruders. However, wasps are also fierce bandits, and they are not easily intimidated. The wasp's scout bee invited helpers after returning to the nest and invaded the bees en masse. In the face of enemy groups attacking, bee sentries will fly up to face intruders, and brave little bees will give up their lives for their queen bees and nectar. The wasp colony is surrounded by small bees, and one wasp is beaten to death by a group of brave fighters. Although vespas are larger, small bees have the advantage of being large in number and possessing deadly pinpricks. The little bee's sea of people tactics were very successful, and the feeling of being stung by the little bee was absolutely uncomfortable, and the number of injured wasps had been exhausted. Bee stinging is the ultimate self-sacrifice - because stinging enemies pull out sting needles with barbs, and when they are pulled out, their bodies will be torn apart.
Wasps are slaughtering baby bees
Whether it is a small bee or a wasp, the family will not cause much loss because of the sacrifice of the warrior. Bees, wasps, and many insects give birth to many offspring, and they also care collectively and gather as families, and as these families grow in size, they need effective organization and leadership. Many insect-gathered families have central members—their mothers or sisters, the queens, are the rulers of each family.
A small nest of wasps in a hole in the outer wall of the temple, ruled by the queen bee's eldest cousin. The eldest cousin also won the throne after a struggle. In addition to internal political struggles, wasps also have to find ways to resist their enemies. Fortunately, like bees, wasps are also genius engineers in nature. They have the means to process wood into a fully malleable material. Wasps chew on the wood and mix the saliva to form a strong paste. When the paste is dried, it is a lightweight and strong material, paper. Wasps produce high-quality paper and use them to build the perfect hive to protect their children. A large number of worker bees are located in a checkered hexagonal hive, responsible for the care of the queen and maintenance of the hive.
The eldest cousin's Wasp family did not have the slightest sloppiness or carelessness in the construction of the nest. Its hive is not only in the wall hole, but also hangs down from the ceiling of the wall cave through a series of "paper poles", which can effectively defend against enemy invasion and avoid the influence of bad weather, and the hive will not be soaked by heavy rain.
Like other wasps, bumblebee hives are made of wood fibers, which, when chewed and mixed with saliva to dry, form a hard paper that keeps the hive warm and moisturized.
A month has passed since the spring river flooding, and He Xiangu, the queen of the bumblebee, has finally reached an important milestone. After 20 days of laying eggs, the critical moment came, and its first larvae began to spit out cocoons. After a few hours, the silk cocoon dries and hardens to form a protective net that shields the interior from drastic changes. After just 6 days, the pupa transformed into a winged killer. The bumblebee was crystal clear and soft at the beginning of its life, without a trace of wings, and then it turned into a black and hairy mass, and it was reborn. The queen bee's first daughter, and its first warrior, was born in the darkness and recognized only the smell of its mother, which was enough to kidnap it for the rest of her life. The hive is safe, the wings of the young bees quickly become dry and hard, and there is a high temperature of 30 degrees Celsius inside the hive. The young bees hatch one after the other, these are worker bees, the daughters of the queen bees who clone themselves.
The number of bee colony members created by He Xiangu is not more than 80 now, but the number of bee colony members is steadily rising, and at the peak of summer, the family population may reach 500. Now, as long as the queen continues to lay eggs, her goal can be achieved as scheduled. During this time, it will never leave the hive to forage and feed its children, and its daughter will take all the family responsibilities in its place, collecting pollen, brewing nectar, feeding all family members, and serving the baby. All worker bees obey the queen, become its faithful servants, sent and driven by them, and work hard and complain.
The bumblebee of the cottage bumblebee
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="05" > bumblebee has been imitated and never surpassed</h1>
The comfrey plant Lung Therapy Herb, also known as Bluebell, which grows commonly at the turn of spring and summer, has become the liveliest restaurant and is being visited by a number of different insects, with bee flies and bumblebees being regulars. Seeing is believing, and some things here look different from the actual situation, and nature is full of scams. This large bee looks like a bumblebee at first glance, but it is not a bumblebee. From the side, it can be seen that it is just a bee fly pretending to be. The bee fly has large eyes and a densely hairy body, like fur. It is busy eating pollen, non-toxic and harmless; there is also a copycat of a bumblebee in the flower bush, and if you look closely, it is actually a fly, called the pseudo-bee eating aphid fly. The antennae of this fly are short, thick, wheat-shaped, not the longer knee-like antennae of bees. Although it preys on aphids at a young age, it is as good at collecting pollen as bumblebees as adults. Bee-eating aphid flies also have long snouts that can suck nectar. What's more, unlike bumblebees, which have two pairs of wings, only one pair of wings, the other pair degenerates into a balance stick. However, the aphid fly is also very hygienic, it constantly cleans its snout and wings - this is very important for flying insects, and the large reproduction of any kind of parasite may make it unable to fly and eat well, and thus return to Huangquan. Bee flies imitate bumblebees, flies also copy bumblebees, they have a big advantage in pretending to be bumblebees, because then they have few natural enemies, and any animal that looks like bumblebees will not be slaughtered - bee flies can forage and collect pollen without interference when they go out; aphid flies have safety and security when eating and drinking Lasa.
In addition to bee flies and aphid-eating flies, there are many more similar animals that copy the bumblebee. Bumblebees, they not only imitate the shape of bumblebees, but even copy the color. From a distance, it is almost impossible to distinguish them, is this a bumblebee, or a bumblebee?
However, in nature's predatory relationship, sometimes no matter how clever the camouflage, it is difficult to escape the fate of predation, and no kind of liar can fool this identification expert - hummingbirds, as the name suggests, are the birds that like to eat bees the most, and bees are their staple food. This bird with brightly feathered feathers prefers to inhabit places with mild climates. Hummingbirds like to eat large flying insects, whether dragonflies or bumblebees, and eat whatever they can catch. This bird is highly skilled in flying, and in the difficult air show, it uses a long and powerful beak like scissors to catch the bumblebee in flight in a clip manner. Of course, eating poisonous foods such as bumblebees is still exquisite, just like humans process poisonous pufferfish: before swallowing bumblebees, hummingbirds will first squeeze the body of bumblebees repeatedly with their beaks until they squeeze out the poisonous stinging needles in the tail, and rub the bumblebees back and forth before and after the long beak, removing their hard hairs, making the food soft and delicious, becoming a delicacy and swallowing it, or feeding it to the child, for safety. But for hummingbirds, this valley and the monk's temple are not ideal places to live, although there are many bumblebees, wasps, and many bees, but hummingbirds like to dig holes in the embankments and mud walls on the riverbanks to build nests and breed offspring.
Hummingbirds polishing their food
There are many bee insects, which means that there are plenty of flowers and nectar in the Kamikochi valley, and it is also true that the monks easily feed themselves by exploiting wild bees. The Yamaguchi monk may be wondering, is it possible to keep a few boxes of bumblebees? They are the kings of honey picking.
But at present, this wish of the monk cannot be realized. Each queen of the bumblebee has its own colony, each colony has its own hive, even if there are hundreds of bee colonies, they will not be like wild bees, forming a colony of tens of thousands of individuals, collecting the amount of honey that humans can eat.
He Xiangu's first daughters formed a national self-defense force, and they went out to work to pollinate the pumpkins, gourds, tomatoes and strawberries grown by the Yamaguchi monks to help them bear green fruits. All the hungry worker bees brought back a full sac of pollen, and the pollen was poured into the waxy storage jar to make honey. The piled up pollen and nectar were the food of the entire colony, the vigorous labor production, and the whole hive was a busy scene.
He Xiangu's bee colony has a good momentum of development, the queen bee sits peacefully at the highest point in the center of the rhythmic hive, its task is to lay eggs, lay eggs again, lay more eggs... For the queen bee empire to grow, it must continue to give birth and give birth to children. The problem is that young bees don't eat pollen, but are keen on meat. If a child wants to eat meat and grow a body, what can a parent do?
At first, it was only He Xiangu's eldest daughter Sable Cicada who brought a few sisters to hunt in a nearby vegetable garden. They are not sensitive enough to catch flying insects, so they have to come to the forest surface to track their prey. There are other predators in the woods, but only the strong can deal with bumblebees. An emerald green praying mantis made a big mistake, it picked the wrong object, and wanted to catch a fly like a claw to clamp the bumblebee cicada and eat it. The praying mantis had wrapped one of its scythes around the bumblebee's head, put another large knife on its opponent's abdomen, and then stared at its prey, intending to abuse it for a while, then tear it apart and eat it. The mink cicada is a newborn calf that is not afraid of tigers, it resisted, first broke free of the second large knife of the praying mantis, retracted its abdomen, and rolled and bitten on the ground with the praying mantis. In such a life-and-death struggle, bumblebee first pierces the soft abdomen of the praying mantis with a poisonous needle in its tail, and the venom sac connected to the poison needle squeezes out the venom. The venom contains hemolytic toxins and neurotoxins, and the praying mantis is soon no longer able to slash and kill with a large knife. The cicada then bites off the head of the praying mantis with its powerful upper jaw. Eventually, the mantis's body was mutilated by the Bumblebee sisters. But the mink cicada doesn't hunt the praying mantis to satisfy its own appetite, and it can't digest meat. The grain was to be taken home to his greedy sisters. #Almighty Creator ##Debunking Has An Attitude##Japan##大黄蜂 #
After returning to the nest, with the concerted efforts of the sisters, the prey mantis is chewed into sticky minced meat, evenly distributed among hundreds of wolf-devouring larvae. In return, obese larvae regurgitate amino acids to feed adult worker bees — like stimulants, giving worker bees incredible motivation to travel 60 kilometers back and forth with their families every day to feed their queen bees.
Because queen bee He Xiangu has worked hard, in a few weeks, the number of bees will soar to thousands, and they are all sisters who serve the queen bee. In order to feed a large group of larvae after the bee, the worker bee mink cicadas continue to go out to find prey, leaving early and returning late, night and day. Bumblebees, like most wasps, are carnivorous insects, hunting other insects, including the praying mantis that the worker bees encounter. But with the proliferation of larvae, hunting mantises could no longer satisfy the sisters' huge appetite. (To be continued)