Palms, butt to butt

Go for it!

Save the Bees

Flower on the Planalto

Yummy

Out-of-focus macro

Insects on jeniparana flower

Brazil nut flowers

A reader sent me the link to his own blog that includes a post on Brazil nuts. Great stuff! See his link on comments to my post below, Brazil nut leaves.

Cecropia

A young cecropia tree.

Tree hoppers and bee

Click on the image to enlarge.

Pudgy bees

I discovered these pudgy golden bees tending their nest in a termite infestation on the side of a 200 year old Brazil nut tree. You'll need to enlarge the images to get a better view of them.

Tapajós, continued

These palm fronds full of bees were right next to a beehive. I think they forgot to make reservations!

Tapajós, continued

The portal areas of the beehives were always congested. As mentioned, these are non-stinging bees.

Tapajós, continued

Another residential area. As mentioned, there are more than one-hundred on this part of the property and every beehive house is unique.

Tapajós, continued

Another little house, full of bees and their honey.

Tapajós, continued

I'm sorry to say that I didn't get one picture of the invited guests and the wonderful food served to us. I was feeling a bit zeroed out from all the adventures of getting to party. Then too, I had to get some food in my stomach and rehydrate myself with plenty of cold beer. After this, off I went to take some pictures of the place our hosts call the maloca (roundhouse). What impressed me the most was the number of beehives I found on the premise. Dona Eunice Sena, who coordinates the project, told me that they have more than a hundred hives of the non-stinging variety of bees. The ones with stingers are kept further out into the woods. Check out some of these hives.

Orchid and bees, continued

The orchid flowers without the visitors. The bumble bees shown on the previous image are easily scared away, compared to the mangangá bee, which will dive bomb me to get back to the perfume. I've never been stung by one but I'm told that they are capable of the act.

Orchid and bees

I was not only surprised at the number of bees visiting this Catasetum orchid, but also by the kind of bee. This one is different than the big black bee (mangangá) on which I reported a few days ago. I would assume that these bees are also classified as orchid bees, but I'm not sure. I never saw more than two mangangá bees at a time. As you can see from the image, there are at least half a dozen here.

Orchid bee, continued

I don't mean to overload my readers with the orchid bee, but I keep digging up more relevant information. By talking with Cleuson, my caretaker at Bosque Santa Lucia, I discovered the indigenous name of the bee is mangangá. The spelling of the name took some time because he used "c"s instead of "g"s. Once I had the name of the big beauty, it was easy to Google it. I must say, there weren't a lot of references. Most of them were related to persons with that nickname. Regardless, the name is mangangá with several variations of nomenclature, including mamangaba, besouro-mangangá, marimbondo-mangangá and abelhão. It's reported as not being an aggressive bee, but when it does sting, it really hurts. Cleuson also reports that he's seen this bee on the passion fruit flowers in his dad's backyard.

Orchid bee

A call from my friend and orchid collector, Claudio Serique, reminded me that this particular insect plays a major role in the pollination of some orchids. I hadn't forgotten this fact but I was still perplexed over what to call the insect that I had photographed visiting the orchid blooms in the above image. My first reaction was to call it a "big bee", but then I changed my mind. Somehow the concept of a bee didn't fit. Then I heard the the word "beetle" being used by a local person at Bosque Santa Lucia. I was still confused, so when in doubt, go to the experts in entomology. I started with Latin American Insects and Entomology by Charles L. Hogue, which was given to me by Robert Stein, retired professor of biology in Buffalo, New York. I did a lot of flipping through the big book until I came to the section on bees. Sure enough, to my surprise, there it was, an "orchid bee". Having the correct name, it was then easy to search the internet for more references, and there are many. This one helped a lot to sort out the genera and species of orchid bees. Here's a more esoteric reference originating from a blogger, who is a specialist in perfumes. It's worth noting that most orchid bees are much smaller than the one in my image. Our friend is referred to as "bumblebee-like", which makes me realize that's what I was trying to say when I described it as a "big bee".