*Anthophora* fight
It's been another interesting week of observing the Anthophora pacifica and all the other life hanging out in their neighborhood.
The females are busily digging new nest holes, dotting the aggregation with piles of excavated dirt.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/109614967
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/109613062
The bumble bee queens have been coming out, too, and occasionally hanging out at the Anthophora aggregation. The Anthophora mostly ignore them, though I've seen males butt them occasionally. This one poked around for a while, actually entering multiple and backing out of holes. Scouting for a site to found a colony?
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/109613058
A weird fungus or slime mold popped up at a couple of the holes:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/109614962
And the coolest of all, a fight between females. First I caught one driving the other away from a hole. It seemed like the bee on the outside was trying to angle her abdomen in, perhaps to sting(?) but most of the action was mandible-to-mandible.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/109614961
A few minutes later, after I grabbed a better camera, their grappling took them out of the hole:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/109614963
What were they fighting over? There are tons on holes right there, so surely it's not just the real estate. Maybe it was an attempt at conspecific kleptoparasitism?
The fights between males that I've seen either are a flying one ramming/butting one that's resting or are a straight-up aerial dogfight. Quite a different style from this.
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Fascinating observations! I have bees (primarily the mason bees Osmia cornuta and Osmia bicornis) using nesting tubes on my balcony, and I've seen the females engaged in similar fights when two of them both decide that the same tube is the best tube :) I'd assumed it was indeed all about the real estate -- not lack of suitable tubes per se, but some difference imperceptible to us mere humans that makes one nesting spot better than another, seemingly identical one. The skirmishes between the males are usually much tamer and briefer in comparison. (At least between Osmia males; the Anthophora plumipes males are a bit more territorial!)
Good point! The holes could definitely be different in a way I can't see.
I'm not entirely ruling out the possibility that they operate according to a similar logic as cats and toddlers -- i.e. if you have it, I want it!
My Osmias do show a preference for used tubes over new ones (the old nesting sites smell familiar/safe, I guess?), so that also seems to be a factor for some species.
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