When you think of bees, you always think of the little bees that work hard to collect honey among the flowers. In fact, bees belong to the order Hymenoptera, which is a close relative of ants, and there are tens of thousands of species. Hymenoptera is the third largest order of insects, including all bees and ants, and its name comes from its membranous, transparent wings - the ants' wings are degraded due to terrestrial life, but male and queen ants still have wings before mating.
In the past, the bees raised in Huangxian County were all Chinese bees, in addition to domesticated domestic bees, Chinese bees can also use sporadic and scattered nectar sources to survive naturally in the wild, which is commonly known as wild bees. The Italian bees introduced from Italy cannot survive in the wild, so they can only be pulled by beekeepers in cars and follow the footsteps of flowers from south to north.
In the past, there were very few professional beekeepers in Huang County, all of them raised sporadically in each household, and there were no beehives, so they used the nest recessed into the wall behind the pot table, added a cover plate, drilled a hole in the outer wall, nailed a wooden peg under the hole, tied a red cloth strip to facilitate the bees to identify, and a simple farmer's beehive was done. One of the advantages of this is that it makes full use of the space, and in the winter, you can use the heat of the stove to help the bees survive the winter safely - you have to admire the wisdom of the predecessors. With the beehive, it is time to collect wild bees: catch a small bee that collects honey among the flowers, tie a white thread around its waist, and then track it until you find the hive, the most important thing is to find the queen bee, put it on a wicker fence, under the effect of pheromones, the bees flying around will slowly gather, see that it is almost, cover it with a red cloth, carefully take it home and move it to the hive, and a group of wild bees will be ambushed. Usually bees go in and out of the yard, busy, and people have nothing to do, because the bee's ovipositor is degenerated, connected to the intestines, once stinging, will pull out the internal organs, natural bees can not live, so bees are pacifists, never take the initiative to attack others, but in order to defend their homes and relatives, it will also use its life to defend, who can say that the little bee is not a warrior?
In spring, bumblebees appear earlier than bees, and they are not numerous, rarely appear in groups, and they are the largest of the bees, which is also the origin of its name. Huangxian dialect is called "gourd head bee", which is to describe its round round wheel pier and fat appearance. The gourd-headed bee is covered with yellow, brown and white hairs, like a piece of fur, and is resistant to cold, and in the morning before the bees come out, it starts work. Because of its bulky body, it flies with a "buzzing" sound, like a small helicopter, and it is said that some flowers can only spray pollen when they hear this "buzzing" sound, so the gourd head bee is an irreplaceable pollinator bee for bees.
There is a saying in Huangxian County called "gourd head, sting cow", which means that gourd head bees are particularly poisonous and can sting cattle to death. Since I was a child, the adults in the family pinched their ears and told them not to provoke the gourd-headed bees if they were fine. Later, I saw a document saying that the gourd-headed bee had no stings - we really didn't hear anyone in Sanli and Wucun who had let the gourd-headed bee sting. In order to observe, I once danced down with a broomstick, its butt is round, not very like it has a stinger, because I was afraid of hurting it, I didn't squeeze its ass and let it go, but I think what the book said may be right, just its five big and three thick appearance, it is good if it does not bully others, who dares to bully it. Besides, it feeds on pollen, unlike carnivorous bees that need to catch other insects, so why waste energy to get a small needle in the buttocks? And with its waist, it is not easy to pout its butt and sting people.
There is a kind of bee similar to the gourd-headed bee, the head is slightly smaller, the body is a little slender, the biggest difference is that there is no long fluff on the back of the abdomen, it is very smooth, the people of Huangxian County call this kind of bee also called the gourd-headed bee, in fact, it is not right, its scientific name is carpenter bee, not a family. The gourd-headed bee generally makes a nest in the tree hole and the abandoned rat hole, and lives in small groups, the carpenter bee is a lone ranger, and likes to bite holes in the rafters of the eaves and the wooden sticks of the grapes, separated into a watertight cabin-like bee room, and each larva is placed in front of a cluster of pollen, leaving it to fend for itself. Carpenter bees are very powerful, maybe the gourd-headed bee is carrying the black pot for people?
There is also a kind of bee called "thousand-legged bee" in Huangxian dialect, which is actually a long-legged bee with thin and long legs, hanging under the body when flying, as if it has many feet.
The thousand-legged bee likes to make its nest on a pine tree, and its nest is not waxy like bees, but paper, made of chewed pine wood and saliva - pine wood is softer, and bees have to use cork to make their nests, and hardwood cannot be gnawed. Start by building the nest handle, and then build the nest at the end of the handle, which is like a lotus canopy and hangs downward. When we were children, we poked the bee's nest, nine times out of ten it was rushed to it, even if it was an empty beehive, it can also be used in medicine, "Materia Medica" contains: "The honeycomb tastes bitter and salty, pungent, flat, poisonous, and needs medicine for clearing heat, softness, and dispersing knots." There is also a kind of thousand-legged bee that is slightly smaller and likes to make nests under the ridge and eaves, called the "parent foot bee", and its temperament is indeed a little more docile than that of the thousand-legged bee.
"Wasp" in the Huangxian dialect specifically refers to the Earth Hornet, "horse" means big, the wasp is thicker than the thousand-legged bee, the color is also more yellow, and the nest is larger - if the nest of the thousand-legged bee is like a lotus canopy, the nest of the hornet is more like the flower plate of a sunflower.
Like the thousand-legged wasp, the wasp is also a predator, and will catch caterpillars and chew them into meat balls to feed to the larvae, and the adults do not eat meat, but only drink the liquid secreted by the larvae, which is called "feeding" in biology. There is also a kind of wasp is relatively small, flies relatively fast, back and forth like electricity, the scientific name does not know what to call, Huangxian people call it "grass wasp" - and "horse" is the opposite, in Huangxian dialect, generally with "grass" refers to the small, such as grass scale, that is, refers to a kind of small grub that appears in early summer;
The wildebeest hornet likes to make a nest in the crack of the wall, on the thorn needle prick, and at the corner under the eaves, the shape of the nest is irregular, more casual and casual, and a little sloppy feeling, so the Huangxian dialect calls it "grass chicken feathers", the grass chicken feathers are small, and the courage is also small, and there are very few cases of attacking people.
The golden-ringed wasp is named because of the multiple golden yellow rings on its abdomen, and it is called "oil bee" in Huangxian dialect because its body is shiny and shiny.
The oil bee is the largest wasp in the world, thick and long, the body is soy sauce-colored, red and lush, generally in the soil or tree cavity to make a nest, the hive is as big as a basin, and the bee room has a small finger thick. In fact, more people die from bee stings than from snake bites every year, and most of them are due to oil bees.
"Book of Poetry, Xiaoya, Xiaowan": "The moth has a child, and the moth bears it", the moth is the double-banded noctuidae of the noctuidae family, and its larvae are a kind of cyan insect. The moth is called "the earth bee" in the Huangxian dialect, its abdomen has a poisonous stinging needle and ovipositor, when reproducing offspring, first use the stinging needle to stun the moth larvae, and then pierce the oviposition into its body to lay eggs, the eggs hatch out of the larvae, that is, to feed on the moth, and then pupate into a moth.
The ancients did not understand this phenomenon and mistakenly thought that the moth would not give birth to children, but that it was feeding the moth as a godson, so there was often a saying of "the moth is a child" in ancient books. However, the people of Huangxian County have long understood this phenomenon and call it "borrowing corpses to return souls". The moth is very recognizable, its waist is thin, and it can make women envy to death, so it is also called the slender waist bee. Its nest is also very distinctive, it is made of mud into the shape of a small wine jug, and there is a curled edge, like a delicate handicraft, so the moth is also called a mud pot bee.
Huangxian dialect of bee larvae and bee pupae are commonly called "bee children", this name is really a stroke of genius, bee larvae and bee pupae in the bee room, absolutely like a baby wrapped tightly with a small quilt, called "bee child" is not only godlike, but also with a favorite taste in it. "The Book of Rites: The Month Order": "No insecticidal children." "Note": "Words are born like children." It seems that this name has been used for a long time.
Bee children can not only be used as food, but also into medicine, "Compendium of Materia Medica" recorded: "sweet, flat, slightly cold, non-toxic." Long-term clothing makes people shiny, good color, black face makes white, not old. "Saying that the bee child is similar to the elixir of Taishang Laojun, in today's words, it is a god of beauty and beauty. People stabbed the hornet's nest in the face of the anger of the swarm of bees, just to get the bee children, and later "poke the hornet's nest" fixed into a colloquial word, metaphorically causing trouble or touching people who are not easy to mess with - poking the hornet's nest can be stabbed in the dictionary, which shows how familiar and accustomed this behavior is. Let's hope people won't kill the bees for the sake of "good colors".
Some of the pictures are quoted from the Internet, and the copyright belongs to the original author