Bee#Solitary and communal bees

As wild bees are called all kinds of bees of the superfamily Apoidea, with the exception of honey bees and not wild or feral archetypes tribes of the honey bee. No systematic relevance of the term has in biology, it merely reflects the fact that in colloquial name bee almost exclusively the best known bee species, the Western honey bee is meant. Order. Publications for the general public, about tips for conservation to clarify that the entire group of bees is meant and, for example, the system of artificial nests has nothing to do with beekeeping within the meaning of beekeeping, so the term is most commonly used wild bee In zoology, even the name of flower wasps as the name for this group of bees was common. So you pressed the similarity of some groups of bees, such as mask bees or bee blood with the related wasps grave. For larger, pelzigere species, such as bees or bumblebees fur, but this name is not appropriate. Meanwhile, this designation is also rarely used.

• 3.1 bees with collective life
• 3.2 solitaire live bees
• 3.3 cuckoo bees

Habitats of wild bees

There are about 30,000 different species of wild bees on earth, in Germany, according to Ronald Burger, bee expert at the Palatine Nature Research Organisation Pollichia, over 570 known. In Baden- Württemberg there live about twice as many species as in Schleswig -Holstein.

The kinds of optically different characteristics from each other, often in minute, for example by coloring or patterning of the insect's body. They show lengths between 1.3 millimeters and three centimeters.

Seriously different, however, are the preferred food plants and Nistplatzanforderungen. Many solitary wild bees living symbiotically rely on one kind of plant, if they do not pollinate them disappear under certain circumstances, the entire relevant population of the species; so for example, five species occur exclusively in connection with plantain.

The existence of different types of soil promotes the occurrence of wild bees, since they use different materials to build their nests; 75 % nest on the ground.

Support the settlement in field, field and garden

The pollination by wild bees and bumblebees as early as the March one, usually so some time before fertilization by honey bees. It thereby takes place in cold and overcast conditions. To count these insects in the garden as is now also in the commercial fruit growing ( a copy pollinated up to 5,000 flowers per day!) To the desired beneficial. ( This also applies to the harmful insecticide by grave and solitary wasps [ not to be confused with the state-forming wasps rights ] ).

By species poverty and tendency to machines just " tidiness " in industrial agriculture and forestry, that is, by the rapid removal of dead wood, dry stalks, brushwood piles and cairns even in optically non-interfering, so-called " blind spots " and at the edge of the field are the natural usually eliminated habitats of animals or severely restricted.

In order to ensure their longer-term colonization and proliferation, can be suitable as a partial replacement dwelling and nesting opportunities to create, for example, through the investment of dry stone walls for soil inhabiting species and suspended tree grates for Deadwood residents. The tree grates are provided with a drilling machine with many different thickness holes and then hung in a sunny corner of a tree. Most wild bees need lots of heat. Absolutely essential is a small rain -protection device, a sheltered space is beneficial. Some species use myelinated pieces of wood as a nesting site ( elderberry ), remove the cord and use the cavity as a nursery. In addition, there are species that require graying wood, in green wood they do not nest. Abandoned tubes of beetle larvae, formerly inhabited Gallwespenblasen or snail shells are also used as dwellings of individual species. As breeding grounds bamboo rods may also be available from 3 to 8 mm in diameter. At one end, but the node must be preserved. The bundle bamboo rods with wire, remove left standing Sägesplitter. See also insect hotel.

Endangering

More than 230 of the German wild bee species are on the Red List of Threatened Species, 26 are classified as " extremely rare " classified, which occur in Germany each have a maximum of ten specimens of that species.

Species subdivision sociality of life

You can see the wild bee species according to their way of life divided into three major groups:

Bees with collective life

The best known group consisting of bumblebees and the partial ( only a few species ) domesticated honeybees, the bees with collective life. These bees operate in contrast to solitary bees brood care; they treat it and feed their young when this slips and contact him interact. Several females share a common nest conditioning and join together to form larger colonies. In these newly formed states prevail under a queen a strict hierarchy and the classification of the bees in box.

A honey bee colony consists continuously for several years, on the contrary to the other social bees, bumblebees. Here is to be found only in a certain period in the growing season this behavior. Thereafter, the State dissolves and all the animals will die, except for the young, already mated queens. These fly out and seek Hide protected for the winter, and then again to start a new nation next spring.

Especially with furrows bees ( genera Halictus and Lasioglossum ), there are different stages of social life: some species make nest aggregations (ie several females nesting close to each other ) and in other species use several females a common nest, others types provide the common nest her brood together (such as the above bumblebees and honeybees ). An example is the honeycomb of the tetravalent furrows bee ( Halictus quadricinctus ). This social behavior is called when then also occur infertile animals, eusozial.

Solitary bees living

The solitary live bees, so-called solitary bees, with a share of 95 %, the largest of these three groups; they are solitary and both females and males, who overwinters as larvae, come in the spring of next year out of the nesting tube to provide for offspring. Since the individuals of this species have to live only a few weeks, the female begins immediately after mating with the nest and with the collection of nectar and pollen. The is outdated food is only a small part of meeting their own demand. Rather, the bee stores the food in a brood cell into which they, if sufficient nectar and pollen are accumulated, an egg deposits. Then the bee closes the nest with a partition made ​​of clay, inter alia, to create additional breeding tunnels below. This behavior is called brood care. The later hatching larvae can then feed on the accumulated provisions and develops into a full-blown bee.

Cuckoo bees

The third and final group are the cuckoo bees. It took its name so because they build differently than their relatives from the previous groups, no nests. Rather, they have specialized to use other birds' nests for rearing their own breed. Take the opportunity when the Nestbauerin (usually a solitary bee) is just to pollen search, and lay their eggs in the host colony cell that is already partially filled with stock. Take the parasitic bees in a host population out of hand, so break them in the next year under unfavorable conditions together because now the number of parasites exceeds that of the hosts. Logically, then disappear all parasites. Individual survivors or immigrant solitary bees gradually build anew a host population on, and soon again the Schmarotzerart to find. Interestingly, prefer cuckoo bees often the same plants as food sources such as their host.

Risk to humans

Wild bees do not attack on its own people. While honey bees and some species of bumblebee in the vicinity of the nest a troublemaker targeted attack and try to expel, it comes with the other native bees only to a trick when the females feel threatened individual, such as when you press the animals between the fingers, with bare feet step on them or they fall between clothing and skin.