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Pollen carriers

 

When bees pay a flying visit to flowers, pollen is caught between the hairs on their bodies. Hairs are mostly plumose, in order to retain more pollen grains. To carry larger quantities of  "bulk goods" they need, however, special organs into which they store the pollen that they scrape from the bodies with their legs. For this particular purpose, hairs on different parts of the body have been developed by various groups of bees. For the transport of pollen, the majority of bee species use pollen scopae on their hind legs. Megachilid bees carry it on the scopa on the underside of the abdomen, while andrenid bees use, apart from their legs, the little sacs at the rear of their chests. Some halictid bees, on the other hand, carry it on their legs and abdomen at the same time, while Hylaeus and Xylocopa transport the pollen in their crops, together with nectar.

 

Lasioglossum puncticolle mining bee transports the pollen on its legs and abdomen. In other bees, hairs have been developed to a greater extent for this particular purpose on one of these body parts.

With its pollen cargo, Pseudapis bispinosa mining bee returns to its nest under the ground.

 

Hairy-legged mining bees (Dasypoda hirtipes) have the largest pollen scopae on their hind legs.

Leaf-cutter bee (Megachile pilidens) carries the pollen on the bottom part of its abdomen.

 

 

Slovenian Museum of Natural History

                                Text and photographs by Andrej Gogala