Little bees in a burrow

[McGyver]

I figured being this is a hive, some of the bigger bees might find these little ones interesting...

For years in early spring I've found these little burrows all over my property... Mostly in fairly open areas, too big for ants, too small for hippos, I've often wondered what makes them... Since the treaty of Kalderar prevents me from using explosives to dig out local life forms anymore, I've just left them alone and casually wondered what fascinating creatures could have constructed these elaborate burrows rivaled only by the grandeur of the great pyramids of Ohio... Or Egypt... Ohio has the potatoes?... Wait... That's Idaho... Well, whatever... I was usually pretty drunk and lying face down in the dirt, so I may have been easily fascinated by small burrows that look much larger at ground level.
I blame the raccoons, they make some mean moonshine.
Anyway, the burrows are pretty small... Wait... Hippos are the big pig things that do ballet and live in rivers in Africa... I was thinking of burrowing wasps... Right? Hippos don't fly....
Anyway... The burrows are about the diameter of a hinge pin from one of the secondary relay access panels on a Soyuz spacecraft... Or also the same as a pencil... Anyway, there are usually dozens of them in the same area which is unusual because most burrowing insects are a little solitary... Unless it was a hippo colony, but I just realized that wasn't what I was thinking of... This is getting quite long...
Anyway... I was doing some stuff outside a little while ago and happened to be sitting on a log... I hope it was a log... And I noticed tiny little heads starting to poke out of the burrows... Mini bees of some sort!
They are too small and the wrong shape for burrowing bees... At least the ones that I know of... They are about 40% the size of an adult honey bee... And quite cute.
I need a hobby.
Well, whatever... I thought I'd share two of the better pictures I took of them.

It's kinda fascinating the things that I find fascinating...
Anyway... Happy Easter Bunny Day too!

 

[Miss B]

Happy Easter to you too McG. Those are interesting photos, as I would never think of bees burrowing into the ground.

 

[Sunfire]

Happy Easter.

I do know some bees to burrow, stepped in a hole and got stung once as a kid, and of course some wasps burrow, recently had a run in with them too... got one stuck in my ear. Those little buggers are cute however, nothing like those nasty wasps.

 

[Miss B]

Ouch! I don't remember where I was, but I was on vacation with a couple of friends, and we were at the beach one day, and when I came out of the water, I sat down, and somehow I got stung right in the arch of my foot, so I suspect whatever it was, bee or otherwise, was on the sand, and my foot just happened to land on it. Sheesh it was no fun, so I can't imagine a wasp stuck in your ear being any fun either.

 

[FairyFantastic]

wow i didnt know there were burrowing bees not heard of them here in uk but all bee pack a good sting

 

[Pendraia]

Happy Easter McGyver...love the photos and the story to go with it!

Ouch Sunfire...that sounds painful!

 

[Sunfire]

The one in my ear, was jammed up were the ear curls over, and wasn't able to sting me... however it had friends and by the time I managed to get out of my clothes and get away from them I think I had 8 stings, maybe more, and they all HURT. Not just a little bit. Mostly on my abdomen and thighs... they'd gotten inside my jeans.

 

[Terre]

Ouch! my sympathies. The three wasp stings I got once was more than enough.

McG that's a cute story and photos. Around here I think the burrows tend to be a wasp. Long thing black ones that I can't remember the name of at the moment.

 

[Lyne]

oh my lordy, Sunfire! That's awful!!! and scary!

Burrowing bees!??!!? I've heard of/seen wasps.... nasty things for little dogs and bare footed people... but bees? *runs off to google*...

yup! Look! Ground nesting bees in your backyard! | Department of Entomology

 

[Sunfire]

Heh, yeah. Rather scary. Sometimes my electric tooth brush reminds me of the buzzing of the angry wasps, especially if I'm really tired or not feeling well.

 

[McGyver]

Wasps... I hate wasps. We live in Waspland and I constantly have run ins with them, mostly it ends badly for them sometimes for me... one of the wasps-in-walls incidents ended with me getting 25-30 stings... I got a couple hundred or thousand of them... Whatever fills four gallon bags with their bodies.
I am not fond of them at all...
But Sunfire, a wasp in the ear... Hmmm... I see your wasp and raise you one spider in the pants.
Seriously. After I posted, I went to take a shower and as I took off my pants a 1/4 inch jumping spider jumped out onto the floor... I like jumping spiders, but I was never aware they liked me that much.
So if anyone ever asks me "Is that a large jumping spider in your pants or are you not at all excited to see me?".. I can honestly answer "Probably both".
Most jumping spiders are pretty tiny, but this guy... Actually, I hope it was a girl spider at least, because if I'm gonna have a spider in my pants, I feel it's more macho if it were a female... Well, I guess it depends on how you want to spin it... If you want to sound tough, then I suppose "I had nine male tarantulas with lengthy prison records, running an illegal bookmaking establishment in my pants", might sound more impressive.
Anyway, this one was about chocolate chip size... The big Famous Amos ones... I'm glad it hopped in a very obviously jumping spider manner, because normally if chocolate chips fall out of my clothes I pounce on them and eat them.
It's only happened a couple of times and in each incident I knew they were chocolate.
I guess the moral of the story is don't lay on the ground taking pictures of tiny bees if you don't want a spider in your pants... And possibly something about not hastily eating chocolate chips that just jumped out of your pants, off the bathroom floor.

I think what I found cute about the bees was that they were just hanging out with only their little heads sticking out like tiny six legged, winged prairie dogs with antenna... Which I suppose is a pretty non-cute description. But they would hang out warming themselves and at the slightest movement they would disappear back into their burrows... And after a few minutes, one by one they would cautiously emerge again. Since the burrows are fairly close to each other, it did look like a tiny prairie dog colony.

 

[McGyver]

oh my lordy, Sunfire! That's awful!!! and scary!

Burrowing bees!??!!? I've heard of/seen wasps.... nasty things for little dogs and bare footed people... but bees? *runs off to google*...

yup! Look! Ground nesting bees in your backyard! | Department of Entomology

Thanks! That is them, Colletes inaequalis... I have seen the bigger ones far more times than theses little guys, but apparently the little ones are more common... I once saw one of those green and yellow ones but never realized it was a bee, I thought it was a wasp, since they tend to be metallic in color, more often.

 

[frogimus]

Had a spider in the pants once but didn't know it. Got into work and the back of my knee was itching. About a half hour later my pants leg became real tight so I went to the washroom to check. Had a massive knot on the back of my leg and the vein running up the inside of my thigh was red and fevered. Brown Recluse (a.k.a. Fiddler) bite. Still have a large depression in my leg from lost tissue.

 

[Lorraine]

Cute, McG, very cute. Don't think we have such a thing down here but we do have bees, your nice honey type. And wasps, lotsa wasps. A German wasp nest hanging in a puriri tree just got in the papers cos it was as big as a CAR! And there were four big underground nests around it the the pestkiller man had to deal with before he could get to to the car-sized jobbie. ~shudder~

 

[Terre]

Shudder is right! You want heavy armor for a job like that!

Brown Recluse is something we get around here too. Never been bitten by a spider and hopefully never will.

Oh BTW, I live near venomous lizard country too. Not far to the west is the Eastern edge of Gila Monster land.

 

[Pendraia]

Thanks for the link Lyne...that's interesting as it seems they don't have a hive mentality but live on their own...

Even though this bee is solitary, meaning that every individual female builds her own nest, it is also a gregarious nester

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Those are really nice photos of them, McGyver. You're right - they are cute.

I'll keep my distance. But I can admire them from over here.

We frequently get hornets in the burrows here... I've seen hornets actually take over a bee burrow out here. If you think wasps are bad, holy crap, don't mess with a hornet. A wasp will sting you for daring to look at it. Hornets will sting you for daring to breathe the same air on the same planet!

The one in my ear, was jammed up were the ear curls over, and wasn't able to sting me... however it had friends and by the time I managed to get out of my clothes and get away from them I think I had 8 stings, maybe more, and they all HURT. Not just a little bit. Mostly on my abdomen and thighs... they'd gotten inside my jeans.

...chalk me into the "holy crap" terrified category. That would have killed me. I had a mud wasp get stuck in my hair once, years ago... for once, I was extremely grateful for the frizzy curls, as it ended up so tangled that it could not move enough to actually sting me. My poor Bear was trying to get out the door to work... I actually made him late for work because I made him get it out of my hair!! before he left. That is like the only time I ever willingly handed anyone a pair of scissors and said "Cut the damn hair if you have to, but just get it out!!"

He was rather annoyed with me at the time, but honestly, I'm so allergic to bees and wasps that I didn't dare even try to reach back there myself, for fear of grabbing the dang wasp and getting stung, or loosening the wasp up enough that it was able to get out of the curls and sting me. It would not have been pretty. The last time I got stung, I crumped twice in the ambulance on the way to the E.R. Bees and wasps are one of the few things that I am utterly terrified of, and I will run for the hills at the sight of them.

I don't mind bumblebees. Bumblebees bite, but they do not sting and they can't kill me. They're loud, insanely noisy, but by and large they don't like to bite humans unless you do something to startle them or threaten them. But honeybees, even though they really don't LIKE to sting... and any other bee, wasp, yellowjacket, or hornet... NO WAY!! *shudders*

 

[Terre]

My husband's father tried to convince me that jumping spiders are dangerous to humans. That totally confused me until Jim later explained that his dad was allergic enough to spider venoms that he had to have an epi pen on hand.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Yes. I carry an epi pen at all times when outside of the house. And during the summer months, I keep it in my pocket even inside of the house, because we often get stray bees or wasps or hornets that get in through the windows and other spots that 200 year old buildings have. I am so allergic to them that the epi pen might or might not work well enough to keep me going until the ambulance arrives.

I do like bees. I do NOT like wasps or hornets. But I appreciate bees - especially honeybees - for the work they do, and I would much prefer to NOT have to destroy them or uproot them. Unfortunately, I'm allergic enough that I'm content to admire them from a safe distance. LOL