Re: Bee Coloration - conspicuous warning or camouflage?

On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 5:17:27 -0700, Bill Angel wrote:
(
>  You have raised some interesting issues concerning the insect's
>  behavior, especially concerning how typical apples are as
>  the diet of this insect. Based on my observations
>  while taking these pictures, it appears that yellowjackets will
>  continually return to this type of a food source, until the source has
>  been completely devoured. I live on the 7th floor of an apartment
>  building, and  I placed the rotting apple on my outdoor patio.
>  It did not take  long for several of these insects to discover
>  this food source, and they put much effort (over the period of a week ),
>  in  repeatedly returning to this apple to devour as much of it as possible.
>  They will also occasionally fight to drive off competitors
>  (other yellowjackets) from the rotting apple. So it would
>  seem that rotting apples are a preferred source of nourishment
>  for them.

One thing to consider is that wasps have two feeding "seasons". From spring 
to midsummer the nest is growing, and wasps are mostly after protein in the 
form of insects and other invertebrates, which they feed to the larvae. From 
midsummer through fall the nests stop growing and the emphasis shifts to 
finding sugars to maintain the queen and all of the workers, and so the wasps 
are mostly interested in fruits and other sugar sources. 

So if their coloration is for camouflage it would need to work in both 
instances. This might still be possible if the insects and invertebrates 
they're going after are mostly associated with fruits. I don't know enough 
about wasps to take this any further, but some of the resident entomologists 
probably do.


Tlacatecatl Tlacaxipe