Parasite emerging from bee

TimmyG said:
And just to add I suspect what you are seeing here is the males emerging from the eggs. The egg capsules remind me of shield bug eggs which have a weakened "lid" on top through which the young emerge. I suspect the third is yet to emerge (although there is the possibility it could be the female "mother", but it looks too similar to the other egg cases to me).

My friend Ed Phillips (who specialises in bees, among other things) has another example on his site:

http://www.edphillipswildlife.com/photo14509035.html
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Ah ha, that looks very similar. Thanks.

My thinking is along the same lines as yours as to what is going on, but there again the other male was around and I read that the females emit a pheromone which attracts the male. It might have just emerged of course, from that bee or from something else, but there again the link that Alf gave us talks of them copulating with the female inside the host (where she resides all the time). Could that one on the back be mating rather than emerging? My guess would be that it is emerging (especially as I read that the mating can take a surprisingly long time, and that one was there and gone quite quickly), but that is all it is ... a guess. :)
 
What stunning but strangely gruesome pictures!!

I love how you've documented the sequence be interested what the NHM come back to you with :)

Thank you for sharing them! :)
 
probably quite a rare set of images .......... I've never done any video with a DSLR ...... but I reckon that would have been a good and valuable time to try

impressive shot ......... very well done
 
GardenersHelper said:
Ah ha, that looks very similar. Thanks.

My thinking is along the same lines as yours as to what is going on, but there again the other male was around and I read that the females emit a pheromone which attracts the male. It might have just emerged of course, from that bee or from something else, but there again the link that Alf gave us talks of them copulating with the female inside the host (where she resides all the time). Could that one on the back be mating rather than emerging? My guess would be that it is emerging (especially as I read that the mating can take a surprisingly long time, and that one was there and gone quite quickly), but that is all it is ... a guess. :)
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Looking again I think it's definitely emerging. The way it's floating on it's back like that, reminds me of when mosquitoes rise up from the pond. The legs don't really come into play as they break out by forcing air into themselves a building up the pressure and as the body expands it just kind of squeezes out the tube; like toothpaste :p

Also the wings are held fairly flat against the body. It's difficult to be sure but I guess they haven't been pumped up yet and hardened ready for flight (I suspect the first male we saw was just completing that process).

I think if it was a mating, the male would be using both it's legs and wings for balance, and it's clearly not doing here.
 
BillN_33 said:
probably quite a rare set of images .......... I've never done any video with a DSLR ...... but I reckon that would have been a good and valuable time to try

impressive shot ......... very well done
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Thanks. With video I'd be concerned about missing good stills opportunities, especially as I don't do video and so wouldn't be very good at it (all these things take practice!).

I had lots of trouble getting the parasite in focus and for the captures that were somewhat in focus but (at a push) usable I had to crop a lot.

I don't know how well the video focusing would have managed - I don't think you get the precise control of focusing on a specific small area with video that I use for stills; I think the camera decides where to focus with video. Focusing on the near side of the bee (the obvious place for the video to focus itself on?) left the parasite poorly or not in focus.

I had to crop a lot (getting close to 100% I think) to get the closer in images of the parasite, and with a small sensor camera like the FZ200 that is bad news, especially one that is as noisy as the FZ200. With video I would have been cropping from a much lower resolution (the camera only does HD, not 4K). Also, the video might have been using a higher ISO (I keep the ISO at 100 with the (noisy) FZ200 for stills; I don't think you can control what ISO it uses for video, and I use a small aperture to get as much DoF as I can so that might have forced the video ISO up).

So I would have been using a huge (greater than 100%?) crop on a low resolution and possibly noise-reduced image from a small sensor camera. Unpromising I think unfortunately.

But there again I don't do video, so I might be wrong about some or all of this.
 
TimmyG said:
Looking again I think it's definitely emerging. The way it's floating on it's back like that, reminds me of when mosquitoes rise up from the pond. The legs don't really come into play as they break out by forcing air into themselves a building up the pressure and as the body expands it just kind of squeezes out the tube; like toothpaste :p

Also the wings are held fairly flat against the body. It's difficult to be sure but I guess they haven't been pumped up yet and hardened ready for flight (I suspect the first male we saw was just completing that process).

I think if it was a mating, the male would be using both it's legs and wings for balance, and it's clearly not doing here.
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Thanks Tim. Nice observations. The one thing I noticed in #11 and #12 was what looks like a fold in the wing down near the bee. Given that other images show the wings to be rather large, that suggested to me it was not yet unfurled, which would be consistent with your thoughts.
 
GardenersHelper said:
I don't know. I'm trying to find out. It might a female. In some species the females live inside the host apparently. The males mate with them and the female remains inside the host, being eaten by her offspring. :eek:
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Haha not at all going to have nightmares about that!!! :(

GardenersHelper said:
Thanks both. I've done that and have an initial response. I'm seeking clarification about what exactly we are seeing here.

Here is the response I got from jaguarondi.

The poor bee has been parasitized by some Stylops meliitae (which is in the order Strepsiptera). The one flying around is a male trying to mate with the females inside the bees body.

Was the bee rather lethargic? The one or two I've found with Stylops were.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylops_melittae

Nice pictures

Here is my reply to jaguarondi (the conversation is here. I hope there is more to come.)

Thank you for that helpful reply and link. That is fascinating.

Note - I see that the images were loaded backwards, so I referred to the wrong photos. I will use the photo ID numbers here for clarity.

Yes, the bee was lethargic. I was photographing it for 14 minutes and in that time it changed location only once I think, landing within inches of where it had previously been. It did some grooming (or whatever it is called) briefly at one point but otherwise it was still, or moved position very slightly (e.g. rotating slightly) occasionally. The flash went off about 6 inches from the bee on average every six seconds during that 14 minutes. The bee did not appear to respond to that, although a lot of invertebrates don't seem to be concerned about the flash so perhaps there is nothing of significance in this.

Do you have a view as to what is happening in images 0902 045 and 049? Is it the male mating with the female in the way described at https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160429095045.htm (Link provided by someone else - I am very ignorant about these things - I just take photos.) Or are we seeing a parasite emerging from the host?

In 0902 063 and 068 there are three circular areas at the rear of the bee. The top one and the bottom right one appear to be "capped" while the one on the bottom left appears to be open and empty. Do you have a view as to what we are seeing here?
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It is massively gruesome, but also really fascinating. I think I read further up thread or in one of the articles posted that these are often found on Miner Bees, do they affect Mason Bees too? I'm going to be keeping a much closer eye on the ones in my garden now.
 
sarah_mnstr said:
Haha not at all going to have nightmares about that!!! :(
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:D

sarah_mnstr said:
It is massively gruesome, but also really fascinating. I think I read further up thread or in one of the articles posted that these are often found on Miner Bees,
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That would have been Alf's Science Daily link I think.

sarah_mnstr said:
do they affect Mason Bees too? I'm going to be keeping a much closer eye on the ones in my garden now.
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I'm afraid I am 100% ignorant when it comes to types of bee (or types of anything for that matter unfortunately). So that's a "don't know" from me I'm afraid. (FWIW this wikipedia entry [EDIT, missing link, sorry] on Stylops talks about Sand bees).

What species was the bee I photographed I wonder?
 
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GardenersHelper said:
:D



That would have been Alf's Science Daily link I think.



I'm afraid I am 100% ignorant when it comes to types of bee (or types of anything for that matter unfortunately). So that's a "don't know" from me I'm afraid. (FWIW this wikipedia entry [EDIT, missing link, sorry] on Stylops talks about Sand bees).

What species was the bee I photographed I wonder?
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Oddly enough, I bought a book which arrived today to help with bee ID for the visitors to my bee hotels (I'm a beekeeper so can usually spot a honey bee at a hundred paces, but am lost when it comes to all the rest). Pretty much immediately upon opening I found this -

bee book page 2 by Sarah Mnstr, on Flickr

It says that the most common bees that are 'stylopised' are Mining Bees and Sweat Bees, so chances are it's one of those :)
 
sarah_mnstr said:
Oddly enough, I bought a book which arrived today to help with bee ID for the visitors to my bee hotels (I'm a beekeeper so can usually spot a honey bee at a hundred paces, but am lost when it comes to all the rest). Pretty much immediately upon opening I found this -

bee book page 2 by Sarah Mnstr, on Flickr

It says that the most common bees that are 'stylopised' are Mining Bees and Sweat Bees, so chances are it's one of those :)
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That's excellent. Thanks so much.
 
What an amazing sequence!
Well spotted and captured (y)
 
FWIW I posted some of these shots on my facebook group (UK bees,wasps and ants) and it didnt really bring up any new stuff about what is happening, I think you have been given more info from the likes of @alfbranch and others here on TP.
These are great shots and something that is not recorded very often.
Well done Nick @GardenersHelper for these wonderful shots (y)(y)(y)(y)(y)(y)(y)(y)(y)(y)
 
Graham said:
FWIW I posted some of these shots on my facebook group (UK bees,wasps and ants) and it didnt really bring up any new stuff about what is happening, I think you have been given more info from the likes of @alfbranch and others here on TP.
These are great shots and something that is not recorded very often.
Well done Nick @GardenersHelper for these wonderful shots (y)(y)(y)(y)(y)(y)(y)(y)(y)(y)
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Thanks so much Graham, for your comments and your liaison with the Facebook and BWARS folk.

All - I think we've probably found out about as much as we are going to. I have had nothing more from iSpot or the Natural History Museum. But I think we've got a pretty good idea what was going on in what seems to have been an unusual sighting that I was fortunate enough to happen upon. I think this has been a really good team effort in finding out about it. My thanks to everyone.

One thing though, does anyone know what sort of bee it was?
 
GardenersHelper said:
Thanks so much Graham, for your comments and your liaison with the Facebook and BWARS folk.

All - I think we've probably found out about as much as we are going to. I have had nothing more from iSpot or the Natural History Museum. But I think we've got a pretty good idea what was going on in what seems to have been an unusual sighting that I was fortunate enough to happen upon. I think this has been a really good team effort in finding out about it. My thanks to everyone.

One thing though, does anyone know what sort of bee it was?
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I will have a look through that bee book this weekend and see if I can have a go at ID, if noone else manages to identify first :)
 
sarah_mnstr said:
I will have a look through that bee book this weekend and see if I can have a go at ID, if noone else manages to identify first :)
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Thanks.

I've just been looking at the entry in Brock, A comprehensive guide to insects of Britain and Ireland about Andrena (67 species in Britain and Ireland, of which 40 or so are illustrated in the book, a fair number of which are Mining bees). There are a dozen or so that look similar to my untutored eye to the one I photographed (and some others which might be possibles but which you can't really tell because in some of the (very small) photos the body is obscured by the wings). The text does say" There are sometimes several species with a similar appearance, thus care is needed in identification".

The text also says "Colourful Nomada species and a few Sphecodes species are cleptoparasitic;" I think that is talking about (some of) the bees' (parasitic) behaviour. Then after the semicolon it says "parasitic flies are often seen around nests where it is fascinating to watch their behaviour." I think this refers to flies that are parasites of the bees (the semi-colon is a bit puzzling in this context, so perhaps I have misunderstood this). There again, as far as I can see (from where it is in the book) Stylops (which we think our parasite is) isn't a fly, so that presumably isn't what the book is talking about, the more so because the female Stylops remain in the host and the males are attracted to parasitised bees not to nests.
 
Absolutely fantastic images and documentary. Don't pop in here often enough, but glad I did today.(y)
 
So I had a go at ID and got about as far as Andrena (Mining Bee) but none of them looked quite right. And then I saw the pictures on the Facebook group that Graham put up (we clearly belong to the same group) and one of the members had said this -

"I'm going to have to say "Andrena sp" for the bee. One of the things having Stylops on board can do is confuse the bees hormonal systems, so you can get "giant" males or bees with a mix of male and female characters and colours."

It gets even more fascinating! I still think it's horrible, but totally fascinating at the same time!
 
sarah_mnstr said:
So I had a go at ID and got about as far as Andrena (Mining Bee) but none of them looked quite right. And then I saw the pictures on the Facebook group that Graham put up (we clearly belong to the same group) and one of the members had said this -

"I'm going to have to say "Andrena sp" for the bee. One of the things having Stylops on board can do is confuse the bees hormonal systems, so you can get "giant" males or bees with a mix of male and female characters and colours."

It gets even more fascinating! I still think it's horrible, but totally fascinating at the same time!
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Oh yes, I forgot about that. I read similar things in a couple of places. It didn't occur to me that it would make identification more difficult, or perhaps even impossible.

As a matter of interest, which Facebook group is that? I'm on Facebook (inactively). Can people who are not in a group get to see group stuff? (you can see how familiar I am with Facebook!) Can anyone join the group, or do you have to be invited or similar?
 
GardenersHelper said:
Oh yes, I forgot about that. I read similar things in a couple of places. It didn't occur to me that it would make identification more difficult, or perhaps even impossible.

As a matter of interest, which Facebook group is that? I'm on Facebook (inactively). Can people who are not in a group get to see group stuff? (you can see how familiar I am with Facebook!) Can anyone join the group, or do you have to be invited or similar?
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Hi Nick,
You have to join/ask.
At the top you will see "search" the type in whatever group/person who you want to find, click "join" and wait for acceptance.
Dont think it's possible to see content without joining as most are closed or private groups.
Oh and you can find all of you nice TP friends as well [emoji2] [emoji106] [emoji41]
 
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That's amazing Nick brilliant to catch it all well done not the sort of thing that you normally see
Felt a bit sorry for the bee but it's part of nature I guess
 
Graham said:
Hi Nick,
You have to join/ask.
At the top you will see "search" the type in whatever group/person who you want to find, click "join" and wait for acceptance.
Dont think it's possible to see content without joining as most are closed or private groups.
Oh and you can find all of you nice TP friends as well [emoji2] [emoji106] [emoji41]
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Thanks Graham.

Searched for "UK bees wasps ants". No joy.

I found British Bees, Wasps and Ants, would that be it? Seems I can see the group pool without joining the group. Can't see any of my images on the first 5 pages. Wrong group? Are there photos anywhere other than the group pool? Ah, I see "This group discussion is for members only". Perhaps that is it. I'll try joining...... Latest discussion was 1 year ago.... Wrong group I suppose.

Help! :D
 
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LCPete said:
Felt a bit sorry for the bee but it's part of nature I guess
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Yes, I too can't help feeling a bit sorry for the bee, although I suppose it's no worse in principle than a predator and prey. Much slower for the victim though. Not nice.

Mind you, what I read about the female parasites being eaten by their offspring seems just as bad, or worse perhaps.
 
Superb photography, but not for the faint hearted!
 
GardenersHelper said:
Oh yes, I forgot about that. I read similar things in a couple of places. It didn't occur to me that it would make identification more difficult, or perhaps even impossible.

As a matter of interest, which Facebook group is that? I'm on Facebook (inactively). Can people who are not in a group get to see group stuff? (you can see how familiar I am with Facebook!) Can anyone join the group, or do you have to be invited or similar?
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Google 'facebook UK bees, wasps and ants' and the second result down is it. I find facebook's own search function a bit rubbish!

You just have to request to join and one of the admins will add you to the group :)
 
Been on here a good few years and this is one of the best threads on the forum..............excellent work!
 
GardenersHelper said:
Thanks Graham.

Searched for "UK bees wasps ants". No joy.

I found British Bees, Wasps and Ants, would that be it? Seems I can see the group pool without joining the group. Can't see any of my images on the first 5 pages. Wrong group? Are there photos anywhere other than the group pool? Ah, I see "This group discussion is for members only". Perhaps that is it. I'll try joining...... Latest discussion was 1 year ago.... Wrong group I suppose.

Help! :D
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It's, UK Bees, wasps and ants.
Admin is Matt Smith.
 
sarah_mnstr said:
Google 'facebook UK bees, wasps and ants' and the second result down is it. I find facebook's own search function a bit rubbish!

You just have to request to join and one of the admins will add you to the group :)
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Ha ha! Thanks. Now I realise why I didn't find it. It would have helped if I had searched Facebook rather than Flickr! :oops: :$
 
Graham said:
It's, UK Bees, wasps and ants.
Admin is Matt Smith.
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Thanks Graham. See my previous post. :oops: :$

I have sent Matt a message giving him a link to the Flickr album these came from and offering him to use any of them he likes, and giving him a link to this thread too. (I do have a Facebook account - but I don't use it!)
 
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