I know summer is coming up, but I have the chance to buy some bumble bees for feeders, is anyone interested?
bumble bees
- Thread starter hibiscusmile
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Colorcham427
Well-known member
listing the price would help, thanks.
also, are you offering them in bulk or just small quantities?
Dont have a price yet, looking for interest so I can deal with supplier! Prob quanities of 10 to 30
ismart
Well-known member
just says bumble bees!
JoeCapricorn
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Don't they sting? Do those stings cause harm to the mantises? What about the bee venom itself?
These questions, however, are all moot for male bumblebees- no stinger, no venom.
These questions, however, are all moot for male bumblebees- no stinger, no venom.
PhilinYuma
Well-known member
I feed honey bees regularly and have never seen a mantis harmed.
@Hibiscusmile: How do they plan on shipping these critters? I find that when I catch a honey bee in a medicine vial that it dies withing an hour if not released into the mantid's enclosure (of course, then it dies anyway!).
@Hibiscusmile: How do they plan on shipping these critters? I find that when I catch a honey bee in a medicine vial that it dies withing an hour if not released into the mantid's enclosure (of course, then it dies anyway!).
AmandaLynn
Well-known member
Bumblebees, well the bumble bees I've caught will live a few days without food. So with some honey or sugar water I'd imagine they could live even longer. The mandibles of the larger species are pretty huge and can be harmful to a mantis, just like a yellow jackets. I haven't personally had a mantis get fatally injured but have had a few get their claws and antennae chewed up. So now when I use them for feeders I put them in the freezer then squish them and hand feed to avoid any problems. They are definitely a good alternative to crickets and roaches though, especially for larger species that get to big for bluebottles.
They eat them in the wild, so I don't see problem with them, but like Amanda said, I would squish the mouth with my forceps, I don't want another biting incident, and Phil they ship them in a hive of sorts, I think a clean mouse nest. And they do suggest feeding. I do not really know to much about how to do it, must experiment with them. ouch , ouch, ouch!
keri
Well-known member
I dunno - with a worldwide "bee shortage" isn't that kind of like using Panda Bears as dog food? lol, I know they aren't as rare as panda bears but you get what I'm saying, right?
Yes it is. I am very surprised to hear Phil say he uses honey bees.
Bees in general don't have much to eat on them and many are covered in hairs or tough body parts.Mantids know how to avoid the sting.
PhilinYuma
Well-known member
kova
I thought that we had done this before; must be due again!
The crash of honey bee populations is due to "colony collapse disorder" (CCD) whose cause no one really understands. About 19 states are free from this problem, AZ, together with NE and NM is one of them. As Christian once pointed out, though, collecting in a particular area in the numbers required to feed mantids will most certainly not impact the population. Unfortunately, this is one of those areas on which many Americans think that strong opinions are a good substitute for knowledge.
I have fed thousands of honey bees over the last year and never had a mantis harmed. Neither have I heard a report of one being stung or bitten, so this seems to be a needless fear.
Unlike humans, mantids, like most critters, tend only to eat what is good for them. Note, for example that they ignore the wings of roaches and lepidopterans, and, as has been recently discussed, the gut contents of large roaches and crix. They go nuts, though, for bees. I feed from a medication vial directly into a feeding port. The mantid can hear the bees buzzing, and I have had many species, Chinese, Giant Asians, Shields and Budwings among others, that will try to climb into the vial to pull the bee out.
I, too, have wondered how the mantis can utilize the large amount of chitin (the horny exoskeleton of insects). Recent physiology texts now report that predators like mantids do use an enzyme (a protein that speeds up a reaction), chitinase, that breaks down the chitin, presumably into sugars, so the chitin is not wasted and, as we know, it is not excreted.
I agree with Rick that they don't have a lot of meat in their abdomens, though the thoracic wing muscles are a great source of protein. Much more importantly, all those spikes and hairs pick up the important nutrient, pollen,
"Fig. 3. Adult female mantid, T. a. sinensis, eating honey bee, Apis mellifera. A mantid will normally consume the entire bee, including pollen sacs, but excepting wings."
as described in the source of this pic http://www.bioone.or...6-225X-32.4.881 The authors found that pollen with two flies was the equivalent, in terms of growth, of feeding four flies and that it can also increase fecundity. I have found the latter to be true, as well.
Also, on a practical level, I can easily find honey bees but almost never see a bumble bee, though we have carpenter bees in the summer.
I hope that this makes things clear until next time!
I thought that we had done this before; must be due again!
The crash of honey bee populations is due to "colony collapse disorder" (CCD) whose cause no one really understands. About 19 states are free from this problem, AZ, together with NE and NM is one of them. As Christian once pointed out, though, collecting in a particular area in the numbers required to feed mantids will most certainly not impact the population. Unfortunately, this is one of those areas on which many Americans think that strong opinions are a good substitute for knowledge.
I have fed thousands of honey bees over the last year and never had a mantis harmed. Neither have I heard a report of one being stung or bitten, so this seems to be a needless fear.
Unlike humans, mantids, like most critters, tend only to eat what is good for them. Note, for example that they ignore the wings of roaches and lepidopterans, and, as has been recently discussed, the gut contents of large roaches and crix. They go nuts, though, for bees. I feed from a medication vial directly into a feeding port. The mantid can hear the bees buzzing, and I have had many species, Chinese, Giant Asians, Shields and Budwings among others, that will try to climb into the vial to pull the bee out.
I, too, have wondered how the mantis can utilize the large amount of chitin (the horny exoskeleton of insects). Recent physiology texts now report that predators like mantids do use an enzyme (a protein that speeds up a reaction), chitinase, that breaks down the chitin, presumably into sugars, so the chitin is not wasted and, as we know, it is not excreted.
I agree with Rick that they don't have a lot of meat in their abdomens, though the thoracic wing muscles are a great source of protein. Much more importantly, all those spikes and hairs pick up the important nutrient, pollen,
"Fig. 3. Adult female mantid, T. a. sinensis, eating honey bee, Apis mellifera. A mantid will normally consume the entire bee, including pollen sacs, but excepting wings."
as described in the source of this pic http://www.bioone.or...6-225X-32.4.881 The authors found that pollen with two flies was the equivalent, in terms of growth, of feeding four flies and that it can also increase fecundity. I have found the latter to be true, as well.
Also, on a practical level, I can easily find honey bees but almost never see a bumble bee, though we have carpenter bees in the summer.
I hope that this makes things clear until next time!
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I have a lot of wasps and bumble bees here, not many honey bees, and I always try not to bother them.
PhilinYuma
Well-known member
I have fed them, though i don't see nearly as many down here as I did in Chicago. I think that Hibiscusmile mutilates the tip of the abdomen of hers and had a mantis attacked once. Superfreak, an Australian member had a large mantis stung by a hornet, once, which paralyzed the mantid's leg, but it recovered while we were talking. Just be sure that the mantis is comfortably larger than the wasp. There are a number of clips on YouTube of mantids eating wasps, holding them so that their stings do not come near the mantis, and H. Fabre, the famous French naturalist gives a description of a wasp capturing a bee and then itself being eaten by a mantis. I think that the major reason that folks worry about mantids being stung is that they are afraid of being stung themselves.
Yea, probably, but beggers here can't be choosey, I have lots of dragon flies to, but they have almost human faces and I have hard time feeding them off, so it's wasps for us!
I have two giant asians who have no problems with wasps or bees and also my female limbata sub adult seems to handle bees without getting stung or bitten so it is all I guess in how a mantis holds the bee or wasp that makes it easier for them to eat and seen a wasp try to sting a mantis when it was being devoured but could find no place to sting the mantis and it was probing the raptorial arm and could not sting her at all!O have used dragon flies in the past and may flies as well and any kind of flying insect I could catch even some that look like giant mosquitoes but without the biting mouth parts!I am a expert at catching these with just a small plastic vial with a lid and along with my crickets my mantids get the best in what I can offer them!
