Why do bees live on the edge of a volcano? There is a bee collecting nectar pollen spread, which is beneficial to the human being, but the bees in our impression, although it is not difficult to see, but living on the edge of a volcano is very strange, after all, the rim of the volcano environment is very bad, but there are few plants and animals, why bees the nest here?
They call it the zone of death ". In Nicaragua, capital of Managua City, the Masaya Volcano smoke, magma in the vicinity of the surface, flow boiling. A strand of toxic gas and slowly cooling magma removed any traces of life. However, when a team of scientists visited this place, they found something unexpected: life. A small bee called Anthophora squammulosa walks through the ash heap looking for nectar and nesting in a pile of detritus.
The bee (Bee/Honey bee) belong to Hymenoptera, apidae. The body length of 8 - 20 mm, brown or dark brown, with dense hair. Head and thorax almost as wide angle, geniculate, eye oval, hairy, chewing mouthparts suction, foot for foot carrying powder. Two pairs of membranous wings; forewing and hind wings, wing to wing hook chain column. The abdomen chest hair was approximate oval, less abdominal end has a sting. Life through eggs, larvae, pupae and adults four insect state.
The search begins in Bei'an, the British ecologist at the University of Northampton pollinator visiting scholar Hilary Erenler is the main research interest of neotropical butterflies. Not long ago, however, she began to notice the activity of another pollinator, the bee.
Erenler found almost all of the bees in a small area of Masaja Fire Mountain nesting. There, temperatures of up to 42 degrees centigrade, and from the volcanic sulfur dioxide gas caused by acid rain will occasionally scour the mountains above. No visible growth here. She wonders why bees live here?
Erenler launched a study with researchers and civil scientists from around the world. First, they want to know how many bees there are. Erenler and his team visited the area 5 times in a period of 3 years, and estimated the number of bees to be between 1000 and 2000. However, years of observation left them with more questions, including what the bees ate.
Like 90% to 95% bees, Anthophora squammulosa is solitary. Only female bees in volcano built nearly 30 cm deep side and similar to the cell nests and lay eggs there. They then collect pollen and nectar stored in the nest for the larvae to hatch. Previous studies have found that the flowers of the genus bee, for its pollination plants are not very picky. However, when the researchers collected pollen samples from 10 female bees Masaya Volcano Area when they be startled at. 99% of bees only match the wild flowers that survive the volcanic acid rain. The researchers published in the days before the "Pan Pacific entomologist" magazine reported on the discovery. It is no coincidence that bees have such a close relationship with this plant." Erenler representation.
They believe that these bees in the volcano hellish landscape thrive, because there is a threat to its existence of predators and parasites rarely. Another reason may lie in the absence of plants living in this death zone, so that their nests are not destroyed by underground roots.
It seems that everything is in order to survive, the bee is not easy and even so are other creatures, no matter what or who may be in order to live better and it will always fling caution to the winds, the nature of equity, the survival of the fittest survival of the fittest in natural selection