You can no longer call that mischief! by Maarten Trybou

About "You can no longer call that mischief!"

by Maarten Trybou

About the artwork

Quick as a cat they are. They shoot back and forth among the lavender flowers in our garden, not knowing a second's rest. Well, the males of the four-banded flower bee do sometimes hover for a while, hanging still like a hoverfly, but that is only to sample another bee and then pounce on it.

You can just see them estimating when and how best to strike, and then they fire like a bullet at the intruder. However big the bee or bumblebee may be, collecting pollen on 'their' lavender bush is not tolerated. They crash into it rock hard and chase them away. You can no longer call that mischief!

The males of the European wool carder bee also show this behaviour. But then they are much bigger. They are still the only ones who can give the four-banded flower bee a taste of its own medicine.

Both species chase away other pollinators so their females can collect more pollen themselves. And since males also need to refuel with nectar from time to time to regain their strength, they also chase each other away.

If anything, the females of the four-banded flower bee are even busier. They don't stop. They fly very fast from flower to flower until they have collected enough pollen. Then they fly to their burrow to stock up for the emerging larvae. They dig the hole themselves in the ground or in steep walls.

Four-banded flower bees have those strikingly spotted green eyes. With these, they can keep a close eye on everything and everyone. This makes them very pretty creatures indeed. But full of mischief!