This Fly Torpedoes a Bindweed Bee’s Nest | Deep Look
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ก.ย. 2024
- A “bee fly” looks a bit like a bee, but it’s a freeloader that takes advantage of a bindweed turret bee’s hard work. The bees dig underground nests and fill them with pollen they collect in the form of stylish “pollen pants.” As the bees are toiling on their nests, the flies drop their own eggs into them. But the bees employ a tricky defense against the flies.
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In the spring in California, male bindweed turret bees get into brawls with their peers as they search for a female to mate with. Males pile onto each other and form so-called “mating balls,” an inaccurate name, since no mating is occurring. Rather, the males are getting into fights. The female they’re vying for is caught at the bottom, and sometimes the battle is so intense the males accidentally kill her. But, if she survives, she and the male who won steal away and mate.
Once they’ve mated, females dig through compacted dirt to make a nest underground, where they’ll lay their eggs. The majority of the world’s bee species - 70 percent - are ground-nesting. The bindweed turret bees in this video chose a dirt parking lot near the town of Winters, in the Central Valley. These native bees are known by the scientific name Diadasia bituberculata.
Females tirelessly scoop earth with their mandibles, softening it by dousing it with nectar they collected earlier. They work side by side, but each is “queen” of her own castle.
As they dig out their nest, they often build a turret at the entrance. These dirt towers usually aren’t vertical: Many of them are tunnel-like, with a sideways entrance. Others curve down. With their entrances facing away from the sky, the turrets protect the bees’ nests when bee flies start dropping their eggs from the air.
--- What is another name for a bee fly?
Bee fly is the common name for the more than 4,000 species of flies in the family Bombyliidae.
--- How do bee flies parasitize bees?
The Paravilla fulvicoma bee flies in our video drop their eggs into the nests of bindweed turret bees. When the fly’s egg hatches into a larva, it digs tiny hooks into a bee larva. But the bee larva doesn’t die. It grows by feeding on the pollen that its mother packed for it inside the nest. As the bee larva grows, the fly larva sucks it dry and kills it. Then the fly finishes growing into an adult and pushes up through the ground to emerge the following spring.
--- How do you tell a bee fly from a bee?
Even though bee flies have hairy bodies like bees, if you look closely, you can tell them apart. Bee flies have big eyes that cover a large area of their heads. And bee flies’ antennae are short compared to bees’ antennae.
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#beeflies #nativebees #deeplook
The way they wiggle and shuffle or ploop their way into their tiny tube homes with a bumfull of pollen is unexpectedly adorable
Ploop = plop?
@@D-Z321 I mean they ploop so not really a plop. More of a ploop.
I needed this tonight
Plant or checkout some Obediant wildflowers. It's hilarious watching their butts sticking out when they are going for the pollen
This comment
The buzzes they make while digging are so cute.
The pollen pants are beautiful.
We agree!
At first I thought they're stargazers but I was wrong. 😅
I also got a laugh at the pollen paints with the bee feet sticking out 😂
@@KQEDDeepLook😢is ok
Those shots of the pollen pants just sliding down the tunnels was hilarious. Well done!
The bees look like our fluffy ragdoll kitty, with their pollen pantaloons :)
2:25 they are so cute when they crawl to their nests.
they're so furry and chubby!!
btw do these ones have nasty stings?
I like to think they kinda slide down front first so they don't mess up the pollen pants
@@alveolate no
Nature is odd weird and amazing all at the same time
That's our show in a nutshell, thanks!
@@KQEDDeepLook no problem 😊
So is punctuation.
@@NoobsDeSroobs wdym?
@@NoobsDeSroobs no seriously what are you talking about?
This channel truly deserves much more recognition than it has, the amount of information and clear footage is marvelous
This channel has over 2 million subscribers...what more recognition are you referring to?
@@godbelow 2 million more
Lol never enough for good science channels. I was shocked how low sci show was given it's the best science channel on TH-cam.
The segments are never boring and just the right length stuffed with knowledge.
@@godbelow 8 billion people on the planet. There are more than 2 million people living within 3 miles of me. Small fraction of human population. Not sure why you felt the need to argue about this, get a life.
Awww the little pollen pantssss ❤❤❤
POLLEN PANTS
@@KQEDDeepLookPOLLEN PANTS
POLLEN PANTS
@@Field_Ant POLLEN PANTS!!!
POOPY PANTS 💩
Love the pollen pants, and I felt so bad for the bees whose hard work was spoiled by those pesky bee flies.
2:00 And not a few days ago, I was walking around Aberdeen, and seeing bindweed flowers thought to myself, “surely, these are morning glories!”
Thanks for the clarification, Deep Look!
😁
The delivery of "pollen paaants" made me smile so hard
I love those pollen pants 😅
why is your comment says 3 days ago?
@@Re_Beentime traveler?
They are a Patreon Subscriber! www.patreon.com/deeplook
@@KQEDDeepLook oh
I prefer time traveller.
0:57 Aww, so cute!! What a beauty, keep it up!!!
I thought bee flies only attacked tree bee nests not ground bee nests!
But why is betrayal EVERYWHERE when you're SMALL?
... although big ones... Humans and chimps raiding neighbors,
Kleptoparasitic birds...
Nature is sometimes rough, but some species try and be better!
Life is hard. So any cheatcode you find to make it a little easier, makes it so your offspring has a bigger chance of survival. Much of earths life could be described as a collection of cheatcodes. There are very few organisms that don't profit one way or another from other life, very often at its expense.
The bees deserves it, they stole pollen from the bindweed flowers. The bees are the true freeloading parasites, the beeflies are the real pollinators.
Yeah, best to assume exceptions are highly likely in all things biology. The worst thing you can do is assume "always", "all", "never","only".... especially with flies... There are flies infected with other flies that catch other flies to infect them so that all 3 species land in one host at the end when the final one in the series bites a big mammal. I'm oversimplifying that but ... Yeah
Because it's the NON-HUMAN world out there in the wild.
The music is my favorite part. It’s the icing on the cake seeing lil wiggly bee bums with pollen pants. :)
I am entirely too emotionally attached to these bees. They looked so adorable peeking out of their turrets, or with their pollen pants. And I was even angry at the bee flies for killing the baby bindweed bees!
I'm sorry to say this in front of you but that's how nature works there is literally nothing you could do about it
It does suck, as we love bees, but if it helps, bee flies are an important part of the ecosystem too and adults of many bee fly species are very important pollinators in their own right.
Hi my day got just 200 percent better
Glad we can be of assistance!
@@KQEDDeepLook OMG i didnt think someone would reply 😃😄 me and my dad always watch your videos he we are always ecxited when a new video comes out. ❤️ your channel
I'm just here for the "Pollen Pants" ;_; so freaking cute!
Unfortunately, bindweed in Colorado is aggressively invasive. Choking out native plants and wrapping around structures. We are told and tasked to remove any we find. Luckily we found an insects that eats bindweed so the numbers in our native areas should be dropping into a controlled population.
Yep. We Coloradoans have to appreciate all of our wildlife, including bugs. 😊
Thankfully this bindweed is native in CA and one species is even protected!
Is this the native one? Because I see a lot of the invasive bindweed in California
Props to the ppl who helped protect the bees, good Karma and noted.
POLLEN PANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the cuteness is unbearable
0:42 to 0:45 Hello likely varroa mite! (little red guy on the flower; think of them like giant ticks that live on bees. Not native; not good)
Wow good eye to spot the mite! We were thinking it might be a red spider mite.
@@KQEDDeepLook That possible, but it seemed very excited by the presence of the bees. Both mating and foraging are considered likely vectors for when the mites get to hop bees and/or colonies.
We're looking into a story about varroa mites - stay tuned!
Nature can be both horrifying and adorable at the same time
I’m just imagining that little red mite @ 0:44 coping with life after seeing three Kaiju brawl it out over reproduction
We have similar flies in the Netherlands, which shoot their eggs into solitary bees’ nests, but the tunnels I’ve never heard of. Quite amazing…!
Very cool - do you recall the species name?
The one I am most familiar with is Anthrax anthrax, which I have seen around the bee hotels in my garden. Bombylius major is also quite common, parasitizing on what we call ‘sand bees’ (Andrena). They are quite beautiful when foraging on flowers.
But in the dunes of The Hague, you can also find less common species. Although I am not be sure if they have the same ‘shooting’ technique.
They are all part of the family of bee flies (Bombyliidae) :) We call them them ‘wool hoverers’ (in Dutch ‘wolzwevers’, due to the hairy bodies of some species. ‘Bee flies’ is a term that we use to refer to a various hover flies that look like bees.
The camera work is nothing short of amazing. Great job!
Glad you think so!
I was baffled the whole time. I get that most of nature footage is just pointing a camera at a spot for hours and then cutting out the juicy bits but wow, those were some clean, perfectly focused shots of hovering flies.
"Pollen pants!" gave me a giggle. Bees with bloomers!
Hey Deep Look, request to know if you'll make a segment on the Spotted Lanternfly? They're an invasive menace in the northeast and your channel is perfect to help bring awareness and educate us on this insect. Thank you!
Edit: typo correction
Ive heard that trying to increase awareness has led to people smashing EVERY bug they see- or even turning to bug spray, and accidentally killing tons of native bugs! A video on them might do more harm than good
@@justalittleloser2482 respectfully, that's ridiculous. Turning to poison that kills everything is the result of people not knowing what to look for. Proper Education doesn't result in that.
Possible but unlikely, given that Deep Look appears to be based in California.
We’ve got them here in Brooklyn NY, they’re awful, I go out of my way to destroy every lantern fly I see 😂
@@tylernaturalist6437 get the nymphs too. small and bright red.
Man the male bees are on the next level of thirsty lol
We : Nature 🌿🍃 is beautiful!!
Le Nature :😒
Loved the zoom edit into the inside of the hole, I’m glad to see flys aren’t just pests to humans 😂
Laughed so hard at the interrupted mating part!
These bees remind me of Australian Dawson’s bees, which are just as aggressive during the mating season.
Those pollens make them look like they're wearing those big fluffy oversized legwarmers, lol.
Forget this. If I were a zoologist, I would've called that the "Cuckoo fly" for reference
Pollen pants ❤ perfect. Amazing video and content. Thank you for improving my knowledge. Cheers from England.
Our pleasure!
"Nature is unfair" universal truth
Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to another fantastic video! I'm always impressed by the clever and captivating content in these videos. The way the text is presented adds an extra layer of interest, and I can't get enough of how enchanting these little creatures look through a macro lens.
2:30 can we appreciate how perfectly round that nest is.. also beebutt
Thanks. It's not often I see a good short video on a native bee species or any native pollinator for that matter.
Hi @KenS1267, I produced this episode of Deep Look. I produced an episode about another species of ground-nesting bee in California. This one digs nests at the beach: th-cam.com/video/UfMCZYkG5Xo/w-d-xo.html And former Deep Look producer Mike Seely produced this episode about carpenter bees native to California: th-cam.com/video/XjOfbEWVBpE/w-d-xo.html Enjoy! -Gabriela
You bet.
2:21 the little teenie tiny feet sticking out 😆😂
Always love watching stuff from deep look and eons and I am actually going to the Grand Canyon today because of eons video on it and because of deep looks videos on the peregrine falcon. Keep up the good work you guys are doing great! 😊👍
That is awesome! We love eons!
The pollen pants is the absolute cutest thing ever ❤😊
When those bees invent the doorbell camera, it's all over for those flies, man.
The pollen pants make them look like Sir Mix-a-Lot with his parachute pants😅
Those pollen pants look cute on them!
Bees are one of the most adorable things in the planet. They’re literally the opposite of wasps and hornets
The music by Seth Samuel is phenomenal. The bees are cool, too.
the fact that when a actual bee comes near me irl im scared, but when im watching these types of videos im calling them adorable
Bees are so cute. I pet them when they're sleeping in my wildflower garden. They sleep under leaves or tucked in flowers
omg i love the little buzz they make
they’re so cute omgg
those lines are so important for these bees, imagine letting people just step on them nests and a bee fly bombing eggs here and there easily from crushed tunnels :'
The "pollen pants" part was adorable, lol.
This is what Cutiefly is based off of
So cuuuute!
the pollen pants shuffle into their nests was cute
Me on lunch break : let’s see what’s on TH-cam
TH-cam: A Fly Torpedoing a bees nest
Me: omfg is that fly about to bulldoze a bees nest? *click* 😂
omg, they are sooo adorable! 😆
Seeing insects up close shows a whole side of them that you'd usually ignore because of their infamy.
what you saying, i always loved insects
@@sailor5853 Not all people are the same.
Wow, it would really suck to be a female turret bee during mating season. 0:15
POLLEN PANTS ARE SO CUTE
I really enjoy watching insects and other animals build stuff, it’s so fascinating that they can do that even without much of a literal brain
Pollen Pants! So cute :D Thanks, for showing us this Gem.
Pollen pantaloons
Imagine cultivating what you thought were hundreds of bee’s just to find out it was flies all along
Those lil legs when they wear the pollen pants while going in lol! Reminds me of Yosemite Sam
2:21 Pollen Pants!! 🥰🥰
Awww these bees are sooooo cute in their nests 🥹
(I love how their nesting parking lot was cordoned off)
Good karma right there.
@@KQEDDeepLook Very good karma. Wish more people/places took care of vital nature spots like this.
Cordon off a nesting spot for a short period of time to give a species a fighting chance; no real hassle to us, real win for nature
you earned a like for the pollen pants. i couldn't not smile at that
What a wonderful video! Thank you! I have a Hive or Colony I don't know which to call it, of sweat bees. They've taken up residence in a patch of ground that is dry and hard. But they come to my yard for my flowers and water and when I walk over there to watch them take it all back down into the ground it just fascinating at Thrills me!
That bee flies with style with those pollen pants 😂
0:20 and humans complain about getting hit on at bars...
Imagine getting r@p3d to death by a huge group of dudes in your own home
My favorite deep look video are the bees
Bee : Work Hard
Fly : Bird Smart
Imagine living comfortably in your burrow, when out of nowhere a fly flies to the entrance, lays an egg, and flew away
California is full of interesting bees!
I hate bee’s but the way they poke their head out is adorable 1:01
So nice to see there's an actual use for bindweed (which is terribly difficult to get rid of)
They are so cute with that pollen pants😂😭
Thank you for this whole series, but especially this one. Love it!
the pollen legs are so cute!!!!!
I can hear gijinka artists frenzying in unison over the pollen pants.
Why do the bees look somewhat cute
Let’s hope the pollen pants isn’t a new fashion trend
Morning glories were always one of my favourite flowers, but now they are even more because they are the only reason this beautiful bee exists.
Absolutely amazing How similar our life are
And most amazing is the quality and effort put in the making of this video.
Love from India 💕🙏
I like how you said "Pollen Pants"
For all those Deep Look fans, there's a bit of a disclaimer: There are over 5000 different species of bee flies! And not all of them attack bees. Some of them attack grasshoppers and other insects!
The complexity of nature is astounding
Pollen pants has to be the cutest thing I've heard yet
Wow!! 1:10 I thought this was a cartoon 😮
I love that "pollen pants" 🐝
I love Bombyliidae. They're easily my favorite families of fly. And they're cute, too ! I've seen those vertical tunnels of solitary bees too, but never the horizontal ones - and there's like half a million bombyliids around, so you'd think the bees would've learned to adapt, but no...
As the victim adapts so does the one that benefits of it...this reminds me of cuckoo bird situation where they depend on certain host bird truly an interesting relationship
"Buzzkill". Good one, Deep Look!
I love watching bees doing their bees stuff. Buzzy business with their fuzzy body🐝
Lol I love how they don't even use their pollen covered legs they just slowly drag themselves in haha
i was caught off guard by how cute there lil pants are
Pollen pants bees are adorable 😂❤
I love deep look so much. I give them a like before I even start watching the video because I know it's going to be good
I love learning about wild bees we mainly hear about honey bees but wild bees are important too!
these bees are adorable ☹️💕