Talk:Megachilidae

Sting? Reproduction?

Can these bees sting? Honeybee males grow from unfertilized eggs, those laid by the virgin worker bees. They are haploid. Are the males in these species haploid?

Megachilid females can sting, but rarely do (there's no colony to protect), and when they do, it is a very mild sting. Drone honeybees normally result from unfertilized eggs laid by the queen, not workers. The queen measures the size of the cell, and for the larger, drone-sized cells, she deliberately lays an unfertilized egg. If she is failing (running out of stored sperm), she may only lay unfertilized eggs in cells of both sizes. If she dies, or is removed, sometimes workers will lay, and the progeny will be drones because they are unfertilized, but they are generally malnourished, undersized, and not able to reproduce. Except for the south African race of bees, laying workers is the death knell for a honeybee colony. The exception is more complicated. Pollinator 02:24, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

OK, I was wondering exactly the same thing about the sting, but also, which kind of sting? Barbed or smooth? Since they'd been swarming all over my lupines lately, I considered doing a little empirical research in the garden to find out for sure, but I guess the results wouldn't be admissible in Wikipedia anyway, what with that "no original research" rule. And even if it is mild, it's still probably not a lot of fun (though I grew up helping my mother with her hives, so I'm certainly used to it!). -- John Owens (talk) 15:55, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

Answer: In all bees (and, in fact, all Hymenoptera species), males develop from unfertilized eggs and are haploid. This genetic system is known as haplodiploidy. These bees can sting, though the males don't since they don't have stingers (stingers are modified ovipositors).

Male Megachilidae commonly larger than females?

That doesnt look correct (as stated re Anthidium maculatum).
Goertz 19:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I tend to forget when I write articles that everything is relative to one's perception, and I'm familiar with all of the world's bee species; large males are relatively common in Megachilidae (they're almost unknown in other bee families aside from Apis), just not in the more well-known groups like the genus Megachile - a lot of Anthidiines (which account for a fair number of species) have the males larger than females. Maybe not dramatically so, as in A. manicatum but larger, nonetheless. "Common" just means that it is somewhere between "uncommon" and "more than half". Maybe I'll need to simply choose a different phrasing to avoid confusion. Dyanega 21:09, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Fidelia

Note that the link on Fidelia gets redirected to some page about a group of plants, not bees TheBFG (talk) 17:25, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

OK, I've made it a dab page; now all we need is an article on the genus... Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:37, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

To add to article

To add to article: do they produce honey? 173.89.236.187 (talk) 23:50, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Also to add to article: do they sting? 76.189.141.37 (talk) 23:52, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

These questions are addressed via minority statements (i.e., exceptions to the rule), not majority statements. Since 97% of bees do not produce honey, the one exceptional lineage in the family Apidae that DOES produce honey has it mentioned under each of the included genera (e.g., Apis, Bombus, Melipona). There are 20,000 bee species that do NOT produce honey, so it would be pretty silly and tedious to edit all of their Wikipedia entries to indicate this. The same applies to stinging; since 90% of all bees (the females, specifically) sting, it is only worth mentioning it for those rare exceptions that do not sting (e.g. Meliponini, Pedita). Dyanega (talk) 00:49, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

forage efficiency

The following statement in the lede about efficiency seems dubious, certainly is lacking a citation.

"While they are efficient as pollinators, they are inefficient as foragers; megachilids require an average of ten times as many trips to flowers to gather sufficient resources to provision a single brood cell as other types of bees."

For one, it is extraordinarily broad, what with there being thousands of bee species. Beyond this, I can offer photographs of leafcutter bees so laden with belly pollen that it is inconceivable that they are carrying one tenth the pollen as is a leg-carrying bee. Obviously a photo only is anecdotal and from it one cannot offer a documentable percentage, but the photo evidence is at least strong enough evidence to allow me (and others) to question the one-tenth statement.

(When I figure it out I'll insert a photo.) GeeBee60 (talk) 21:28, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Having received no comments since this post 3 months ago, I have deleted the introductory sentences about megachilids being highly efficient and highly inefficient pollinators. Both remarks are more hyperbole than good science, in both cases lacking documentation. I have read (and don't recall source) that Osmia lignaria (Blue orchard bees) need about 25 trips to the nest to stockpile enough pollen for one egg to then be laid. But besides not being able to presently cite this source, even if (when) I do, I don't know how this compares to other bees without further research. No doubt someone has made comparisons, but it isn't referenced here.

In general solitary bees (most bees e.g.) groom pollen in their nest while most social bees, (i.e. bumble and honey bees) groom pollen outside the nest, compressing the groomed pollen into pellets onto the corbicula (pollen basket). A solitary bee is safer and more efficient inside her solitary nests, where as social bees with loaded pollen baskets can deliver pollen quickly and neatly, and then exit. By grooming outside the nest they can make a tidier entry (no pollen haphazardly everywhere) and minimize time inside the crowded nest.

GeeBee60 (talk) 17:19, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Diversity

The section on diversity has been expanded from one paragraph to seven. It might be that some of the addition should be shifted to a new section on artificial nesting or cultivation or pollination services. And more can be said about diversity, but the old version was clearly inadequate.

I have made a few other changes as well. I'd like to add a couple of photos, but on that I need advice.

GeeBee60 (talk) 00:21, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

What is a leafcutter bee?

I just noticed that leafcutter bee is a redirect to this page, which in turn has the lede sentence "Megachilid genera are most commonly known as mason bees and leafcutter bees '''[[megachile|leafcutter bees]]''', reflecting the materials from which they build their nest cells (soil or leaves, respectively)"

Does "leafcutter bee" refer to Megachilidae? Megachile? Or does it refer to any bee which builds nests from leaves and doesn't necessarily correspond to a taxonomic clade?

Umimmak (talk) 00:09, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

leaf cutter bee is a vernacular name that is applied to various members of the family Megachilidae, most often (but not always) in the genus Megachile. Thats the problem with vernacular names, there is absolutely no regulation on how they are applied.--Kevmin § 03:00, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps the way it is right now is the best way to do it; I was just confused to see a redirect correspond to term which suggests an alternate name for the family, but then have it link to a genus making it seem like it's an alternate name just for the type genus. And it's definitely not clear that other genera aside from Megachile are included in this "folk taxon". Is it worth having a separate page for the term "leafcutter bee", disambiguation or otherwise (maybe discussing how they build nests, what sort of plants they use, their ecological niche etc) since leafcutter bee and Megachilidae don't refer to the same thing? Or maybe the way it is now is the best way and I'm just overthinking it. Umimmak (talk) 10:57, 26 November 2017 (UTC)