Bees make the world buzz!

For many, a bee is just the honey bee, which is just one species of more than 20,000 recorded bee species. 

Bees are closely related to wasps and ants and are important pollinators. They evolved from wasps which are predatory insects and can nowadays be found wherever insect-pollinating flowers manage to live.

Insect-pollinated flowers, before the appearance of bees, were pollinated by other insects such as beetles, flies and butterflies. The appearance of bees probably led to a greater diversity of flowering plants.

Bees became specialised nectar and pollen feeders which put them at an advantage over other insects. Nectar is the source of energy which allows these insects to fly tirelessly in search of flowers and nectars provides the proteins for the growing larvae.

More than sixty species of bee have been recorded in the Maltese islands and more are likely to be found as this group of insects has not been thoroughly. 

Some bees live in colonies while others are solitary. Bee communities may semisocial. These consist of colonies of sisters living together in which there is division of labour. 

More advanced communities are called eusocial. These are more complex organisations consisting of a queen bee, female workers and male drones.

Solitary bees do not live in colonies although in some species the individual nests are built close to each other giving the impression of a colony. The largest of the solitary bees is the large carpenter bee which is known in Maltese as bomblu iswed.

The bumble bee, known in Maltese as bomblu, is a social bee of great benefit to humans because of its pollinating activities.

A close look at indigenous flowers including species which flower during the summer months such as the pennyroyal (plejju), fennel (busbies), caper (kappar) and squirting cucumber (faqqus il-ħmir) can lead to the discovery of the interesting world of bees. 

This article was published in The Times on 13.06.2012

Flies and their reputation

Flies have a bad reputation because some species are ‘harmful’ to humans even though some of these species actually do more good than harm.

Flies belong to an order known as diptera. Diptera is made up of two words, di (two) and ptera (wing). Flies have one pair of wings a feature that distinguishes them from all other insects including several species which have the word fly in their name such as mayflies, fireflies and sawflies. 

Some flies mimic other insects such as bees and wasps. This fools predatory species such as birds but the lack of a second pair of wings gives them away to any careful observer.

It is believed that there are hundreds of thousands of species of flies although half of these have not yet been identified. The situation is similar in Malta as species new to science are still being identified on a regular basis.

I love to be close to nature surrounded by wild plants and animals but mosquitoes which are flies I can live without not only because they sometimes keep me from sleeping properly but also because some species can transmit diseases such as malaria. Sand flies are just as annoying and are vectors for leishmania, a parasitic protozoan responsible for the disease leishmaniasis.

The housefly is another pest that can carry serious diseases. It is the most common of all domestic flies and is one of the most widely distributed insects. It feed on faeces, open sores, and moist decaying organic matter such as spoiled food, eggs and flesh. 

Houseflies can take in only liquid foods. They spit out saliva on solid foods to predigest it, and then suck it back in. They also regurgitate partly digested matter and pass it again to the abdomen. Because of their high intake of food, they deposit feces constantly, one of the factors that makes the insect a dangerous carrier of microbes. They can fly long distances and a fly entering through the kitchen window might have just arrived from an animal farm a considerable distance away. 

This article was published in The Times on 12.05.10

Insects in Maltese culture

Insects have had since antiquity had an important role in culture and tradition.

 Humans have an ambivalent relationship with animals. Some species are seen as competitors for scant resources or dangerous and harmful while others are looked at in a more positive way because they are beautiful, useful or both. 

This rapport continuously influences our culture including the language, art and literature.

 In earlier times it gave rise to myths, folktales and proverbs especially among those who came in contact with animals regularly including those working in agriculture. Interest in insects and small animals continues today although probably there have been changes in the way we perceive these creatures.

Today we constantly hear and read about the need to appreciate and protect nature but this has not always been so. In former times most animals were looked at as either beneficial or harmful and for those who worked closely with nature work consisted mostly of attempts to eliminate competing nature from the immediate surroundings. 

At a popular level one finds various examples of other more intimate rapports with insects. Some of the more popular insects including the dragonfly are the subject of folktales myths and children’s stories. The dragonfly is often associated with hell and the devil, while the ant and honey bee are seen as promoters of thrift and hard work.

In recent years a new area of study known as cultural entomology has appeared. This area of study exposes how insects play a major role in almost every aspect of human culture.

In many parts of Asia for example crickets are kept as pets. They are kept in beautifully decorated cages and taken care of by their owners. In some Mediterranean countries crickets were also kept as pets.

 Cages were purposely built for these insects although in Malta they were more often kept in a metal can. This tradition survived in Malta at least until the early sixties because I remember seeing children collecting crickets to take them home and keep them as pets.

Another well known insect, the silkworm, is also very popular in Asia where it is still bred in large numbers to produce silk. The silkworm which is the caterpillar of a moth was at times also bred in Malta but in spite of several attempts to start this industry it never became commercially viable.

This article appeared in The Times on 02.06.10