Where do African bees lay eggs?
Image by laura*b
view from our room at the hotel bernini bristol, overlooking the piazza barberini in rome.
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Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s baroque Triton Fountain (Italian Fontana del Tritone) is located in Piazza Barberini, Rome, near the entrance to the Palazzo Barberini (now housing the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica), which Bernini helped redesign for his patron Maffeo Barberini, who had become pope as Urban VIII. It is a few blocks from Borromini’s San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane. In the fountain, which Bernini executed of travertine in 1642–43, an over-lifesize muscular Triton, a minor sea god of ancient Greco-Roman legend, is depicted as a merman kneeling on an opened scallop shell. He throws back his head to raise a conch to his lips: from it a jet of water spurts, formerly rising dramatically higher than it does today. The fountain has a base of four dolphins[1] that entwine the papal tiara with crossed keys and the heraldic Barberini bees in their scaly tails. The Tritone, first of Bernini’s fountains, was erected to provide water from the Acqua Felice aqueduct, which Urban had restored, in a dramatic celebration. It was Bernini’s last major commission from his great patron, who died in 1644.
Question by mn: Where do African bees lay eggs?
I’m trying to find any information about honeybees in Africa and the relationship with the marabou stork. From what little I have found out is the stork tears open the carcasses and the bees lay eggs in the carcasses. I have only found this one place and thought bees layed eggs in hives. I just wanted to make sure that the bees do lay eggs in the carcasses.
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2 Responses to Where do African bees lay eggs?
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I also found a couple of references to this:
“The stork uses its saw-like bill to cut up the dead animals it eats. As a result, the dead animal carcass is accessible to some bees for food and egg laying.”
“A large scavenging bird called a marabou stork uses its long beak to cut up the carcasses of
dead animals. Ground-nesting bees often move into the carcass and make nests. The bees
benefit from the stork’s feeding behavior.”
I’ve not heard of it before but I wouldn’t necessarily discount it. I can certainly tell you that not all bees lay eggs in hives. Not all bees HAVE hives, for a start. There are lots of solitary bee species out there. Solitary bee females do sometimes make nests containing individual cells for the eggs somewhat like social bees do, but these can be built in hollow reeds or twigs, holes in wood, or underground tunnels. Sometimes solitary bees lay their eggs together with each other in communal nests called ‘aggregations’, even though they don’t live in social groups. Then there are ‘cuckoo bees’ which sneak into the nests of other bees and lay their eggs in their egg chambers.
Reimyo
January 21, 2013 at 11:01 pm
As far bacK as Sampson in the Old Testament there were stories of bees nesting in carcass’s of dead animals. Sampson had given it in a riddle to the members of his wife to be, friends, in a wager for wedding gifts. When they broke the code, he knew they had plowed with his heifer.( She had slept with the other guys and told them the answer)
There are two main groups of African bees, both are related:, the “Killer Bees” and the “Cape Bees.”
Both will occupy open nests. They also occupy cavities etc. The “Killer Bees” will construct nest to lay eggs in. These bees are communal and need workers to maintain and feed the young. The “Cape Bees” are extremely parasitic. They will sneak into the Killer Bee hive and occupy it. The mimic the queen bee pheromone and get the original inhabitants to feed their young. They will build in carcass’s of animals if it is the best cavity they can find. Like the European bees, African bees lay their eggs in brood cells constructed like honey cells in the wax foundations, only.
When we had lots of wild bees in America, a great pass time was “Coursing Bees” The Bee hunter would find foraging bees and follow their “Bee line” back to the hive. They could then rob the hive. More often then not they would collect the swarm and bring them home to farm the bees for several more years.
One of the best lures for the bees especially in early spring was a pail full of urine and “poop.” The bees wanted the mineral etc. They would swarm the pail. With so many bees it was fairly easy to see where they were heading. The hunter would move the pail along the course. When the bees didn’t return to the pail he/she moved it back in the direction he came from. It wasn’t long before the hunter would find where the bees detoured off that Bee line and established another one angling off in another direction. A good hunter could locate the hive in a few hours.
The general picture we have of beehunters is a grizzled old guy with a gray beard and Bib overalls. However, I knew several women and girls who took a back seat to no one when it came to bees. I have an 80 year old cousin who is still active raising bees and selling products. She had taught me to course bees when I was a pre teen. Every time I make the 600 mile trip back to my home state, I stop by her house and spend a day in the “Bee Yard” talking about the Olden days of beekeeping.
VINCE
January 21, 2013 at 11:59 pm