Leafcutter bee (Megachile relativa) cleans house

Описание: From the series "Odes to Solitary Bees" videopoems by Stephen Humphrey & Sarah Peebles: http://resonatingbodies.wordpress.com...
This beautiful little leaf cutter bee, identified as the species Megachile relativa, performed a number of strange antics in the process of building brood cells for her offspring. Some of her behavior may be related to creating and/or gathering pheremone information used by bees and potential invaders as signals.

She spent a good part of one day scrabbling around the far end of this tunnel in Sarah Peebles' audio bee booth. Then, rather than complete a cell that day, she focused considerable effort on removing dried-up leaf parts from a previous leaf cell project, which she seems to have abandoned early on. She went on to create a nest in another tunnel (see Leafcutter bee (Megachile relativa) builds a brood cell".

This video was shot in an audio bee booth, which was designed to facilitate observing and listening to solitary bees and wasps as they create nests for their offspring.

The prototype audio bee booth was placed on the grounds of the Toronto Zoo this summer for viewing by young Zoo Camp participants as well as to assess its design as an amplified habitat installation (by Sarah Peebles and collaborators) and facilitate video efforts by Stephen Humphrey. Filming of various species of bee and wasp nesting activities is a joint project of CANPOLIN, Resonating Bodies and Packer Lab (York University).

Special thanks to the Toronto Zoo and its Invertebrates Curator Tom
Mason and Education Supervisor Kelly Bentley for providing a home for
the booth Summer - Fall 2010. More information at
http://resonatingbodies.wordpress.com