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Definition 2024
plasterer_bee
plasterer bee
English
Colletes cunicularius
Noun
plasterer bee (plural plasterer bees)
- Any bee of the subfamily Colletinae, solitary bees that secrete a substance from their mouthparts to give a cellophane-like lining to their nests.
- 1974, Karl von Frisch, Otto von Frisch, Animal Architecture, page 68,
- The plasterer bees, as we have seen, line the interior walls of their subterranean chambers with a waterproof wallpaper; others achieve a similar result by impregnating the cell walls with a glandular secretion or coating them with a waxy material.
- 1989, Pamela Westland, Exploring Rural Greece, page 27,
- Plasterer bees build mud nests in the mouldings, butterflies brush the scenery with brilliant colour — lemon-yellow brimstones, dappled whites, large tortoiseshells and swallowtails are all there for the spotting.
- 2002, Karl Weiss, The Little Book of Bees, page 48,
- Like masked bees, plasterer bees (Colletinae) line their rows of cells with a mixture of saliva and glandular secretion that hardens into a cellophane-like membrane. […] Each female plasterer bee fashions roughly ten brood cells separated by plaster-like walls and leaves a honey-pollen clump and one egg in every cell (see the bottom of Figure 5.1).
- 1974, Karl von Frisch, Otto von Frisch, Animal Architecture, page 68,
Synonyms
- (any species of subfamily Colletinae): polyester bee
Hypernyms
- (solitary bee): colletid (bee of family Colletidae)