Amazing Plastic. Bare-saddled Plasterer Bee, Colletes similis, on Tanacetum vulgare, Common Tansy, Océ-weerd, Meuse Corridor, Venlo, The Netherlands
In 1979 Abraham Hefetz, Henry M. Fales and Suzanna W.T. Batra in Science discussed the wonders of our Plasterer Bee - sometimes aptly called: Cellophane Bee - and her Dufour's Gland. The secretions from that gland are used to transparently coat the inner surface of solitary Colletes' burrow nest to make it not only waterproof and resistant. They also work as a fungicide and bacteriacide. The gland is named for Léon Jean Marie Dufour (1780-1865) who first described it. Colletes doesn't lay her eggs on the nest floor. There it might be too damp but she affixes them to the safe, 'plastic' walls.
No fear for damp on this hot and dry day as I walked my favorite circuit in the Meuse Corridor. I saw this Plasterer Bee gathering pollen on a preferred foraging ground, Common Tansy, Tanacetum vulgare.
Amazing Plastic. Bare-saddled Plasterer Bee, Colletes similis, on Tanacetum vulgare, Common Tansy, Océ-weerd, Meuse Corridor, Venlo, The Netherlands
In 1979 Abraham Hefetz, Henry M. Fales and Suzanna W.T. Batra in Science discussed the wonders of our Plasterer Bee - sometimes aptly called: Cellophane Bee - and her Dufour's Gland. The secretions from that gland are used to transparently coat the inner surface of solitary Colletes' burrow nest to make it not only waterproof and resistant. They also work as a fungicide and bacteriacide. The gland is named for Léon Jean Marie Dufour (1780-1865) who first described it. Colletes doesn't lay her eggs on the nest floor. There it might be too damp but she affixes them to the safe, 'plastic' walls.
No fear for damp on this hot and dry day as I walked my favorite circuit in the Meuse Corridor. I saw this Plasterer Bee gathering pollen on a preferred foraging ground, Common Tansy, Tanacetum vulgare.