Six Osmia simillima females used communal nest entrances to gain access to their nests in a piece of buried wood. Some nest characteristics are described

Scott, Virginia

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Valparaiso University

The Great Lakes Entomologist Volume 26 Number 1 - Spring 1993 Number 1 - Spring 1993 Article 10 April 1993 Use of Communal Nest Entrances by Osmia Simillima (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae) Virginia Scott Michigan State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/tgle  Part of the Entomology Commons Recommended Citation Scott, Virginia 1993. "Use of Communal Nest Entrances by Osmia Simillima (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae)," The Great Lakes Entomologist, vol 26 (1) Available at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/tgle/vol26/iss1/10 This Peer-Review Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Biology at ValpoScholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Great Lakes Entomologist by an authorized administrator of ValpoScholar. For more information, please contact a ValpoScholar staff member at scholar@valpo.edu. -------------THE GREAT LAKES ENTOMOLOGIST1993 79 USE OF COMMUNAL NEST ENTRANCES BY OSMIA SIMILLIMA (HYMENOPTERA: MEGACHllIDAE) Virginia ScoW ABSTRACT Six Osmia simillima females used communal nest entrances to gain access to their nests in a piece of buried wood. Some nest characteristics are described. Six female Osmia simillima Smith were observed using two communal nest entrances to enter a piece of wood in which t ey were nesting. This observation occurred on the afternoon of 13 June 1992 at the crest of a sand ridge overlooking Sable Creek at the eastern end of Gra Sable Dunes atPictured Rocks National Lakeshore on Lake Superior in Alger County. Michi­gan.Within a 10 minute period. two bees were observed entering a single ne t entrance while four other bees were observed entering a second entrance. All six bees were retained for identification. No interactions between female bees as they entered or exited through these communal entrances were observed. Two of the bees brought in pollen while one was observed bringing in chewed vegetation. Two bees were observed removing wood or old nesting materials. The activity of the other bee was undetermined. After the wood was exca­vated a seventh female was seen searching in the area, apparently looking for her nest. She was not collected. The wood (possibly Populus) that contained the nests of O. simillima measured 4.5 cm wide 3.5 cm thick and 20.5 cm long. It was weathered, charred on one end, and buried in the sand except for a small 2.5 by 5 cm section. The two nest entrances were in the sand adjacent to the exposed wood and separated from each other by 3 cm. Each entrance led to a chamber within the wood. A small passageway through the wood connected the two entry chambers, but this passageway was filled with and at the time of excavation, and thus each of the two entrances would have provided sole access to differ­ent nesting tunnels. The wood was riddled with at least seven linear nesting galleries, some separated by only 1 mm. These ranged in length from 2.0 to 8.0 cm. Although the nest entrances were located in the sand, all reproductive cells were found within the wood; none were in contact with the surrounding sand. Cells were entirely lined with chewed leaf material th t consisted mostly of Fragaria. Osmia simillima was reported by Saunders (1872) to be destructive to the foliage of strawberry plants. Based on the color and character of the vegeta­tion in the nest, i  appeared that the tunnels in this pi ce of wood had been used by this species as nests for at least the last three nesting seasons. 1Department of Entomology, Michigan State University. East Lansing, MI 48824-1115. 1Scott: Use of Communal Nest Entrances by <i>Osmia Simillima</i> (HymenopPublished by ValpoScholar, 199380 THE GREAT LAKES ENTOMOlOGIST Vol. 26, No.1 A description of a similar use of communal nest entrances by Chalicodoma pluto (Smith) is given by Messer (1984). Since there were more female C. pluto than active cells in at least one of the nests studied, there was some suspicion that this species may be primitively social. For O. simillima, there were many nesting tunnels. It seems likely that each female was constructing her own nest within one of the nesting galleries in the wood, and that they were simply using these communal entrances to gain access to their nests. The wood containing O. simillima nests was at one time probably laying on the surface of the ground. Each nesting tunnel would have had its own entrance. Over a period of several years, as the sand on the dune shifted, the wood became buried. At this point the bees emerging from this wood and the females nesting in it may have found it more efficient to use communal entrances through the sand rather than constructing separate entrances. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore for allowing me to collect bees on Grand Sable Dunes. I also thank Mike Arduser for kindly confirming the Osmia identifications and providing helpful comments on the manuscript. LITERATURE CITED Messer, A. C. 1984. Chalicodoma pluto: the world's largest bee rediscovered living com­munally in termite nests. J. Kansas Entomol. Soc. 57:165-168. Saunders, W. 1872. Miscellaneous. Can. Entomol. 4:237-238. 2The Great Lakes Entomologist, Vol. 26, No. 1 [1993], Art. 10https://scholar.valpo.edu/tgle/vol26/iss1/10

Use of Communal Nest Entrances by \u3ci\u3eOsmia Simillima\u3c/i\u3e (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae)

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