Nesting Activity and Behavior ofOsmia cornifrons(Hymenoptera: Megachilidae) Elucidated Using Videography

Abstract

Osmia cornifrons Radoszkowski (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae) is utilized as an alternate pollinator to Apis mellifera L. (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in early-season fruit crops. This study was conducted to investigate nesting activities and associated behaviors of O. cornifrons. Osmia cornifrons nesting activity was recorded by using a digital video recorder with infrared cameras. Nesting behavior of ten female O. cornifrons was observed, and the number of nesting trips per hour was recorded. Trends in daily activity were determined with regression analysis, and chi square analysis was used to determine if O. cornifrons spent a greater amount of time performing certain activities. The percentage of time required to gather nesting resources and complete nest construction activities was recorded from the video footage. Results of this study showed that pollen gathering was the most time-consuming gathering activity, requiring 221.6 ± 28.69 min per cell and cell provisioning was the most time-consuming intranest activity, requiring 28.9 min ± 3.97 min. We also found that O. cornifrons activity was correlated with time of day, temperature, and precipitation. Various nesting behaviors, including cell provisioning and partitioning, oviposition, grooming, resting and sleeping, nest-searching, and repairing behaviors, are described in this paper.

Pollen Protein: Lipid Macronutrient Ratios May Guide Broad Patterns of Bee Species Floral Preferences

“…Contrary to honey bees and bumble bees, Osmia cornifrons is a solitary foraging bee with a short flying period. It was introduced to the United States from Japan in 1977 and managed for rosaceous fruit tree pollination [65]. Previous studies of O. cornifrons pollen preferences suggest their pollen affinity to Rosaceae and Fabaceae [66,67].…”

Nesting site density and distribution affect Osmia lignaria (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae) reproductive success and almond yield in a commercial orchard

“…Osmia lignaria females preferred nest sites near orchard perimeters and along beeways (i.e. at the end of the tree rows next to open roadways traversing the orchard; data not shown), presumably because of higher temperatures with exposure to more sunlight, which has been shown to influence foraging and nesting activity in Japanese hornfaced bees, O. cornifrons (Matsumoto & Maejima, 2010;McKinney & Park, 2012). Our findings are in agreement with Gruber et al (2011) who showed red mason bees, O. bicornis L., preferentially nesting at apple orchard edges in Germany.…”

Nest Modification Protects Immature Stages of the Japanese Orchard Bee (Osmia cornifrons) from Invasion of a Cleptoparasitic Mite Pest

“…Nest cell provisioning and nest construction activities (such as plugging the front of the nest, forming a mud partition wall between nest cells, etc.) account for 97% of the total time that a female O. cornifrons takes to complete a nest cell [24]. On average, the O. cornifrons takes 11.5 trips to collect mud and related materials for constructing mud-wall partitions of a single nest cell [24].…”

“…account for 97% of the total time that a female O. cornifrons takes to complete a nest cell [24]. On average, the O. cornifrons takes 11.5 trips to collect mud and related materials for constructing mud-wall partitions of a single nest cell [24]. Providing appropriate nesting substrates (such as nests with paper liners) could significantly reduce the amount of time and energy that O. cornifrons generally spends on activities, such as sealing the nest and plugging nest cell edges.…”