Chapter 20 Flycatcher

You've seen how red wasps and wasps paralyze caterpillars or crickets to feed their young, then close their burrows and leave the nest to fly elsewhere.But not every bee lives like this, and now you're going to hear about another bee that feeds its young with fresh food every day, and that's the flycatcher. This bee likes to choose the lightest and loosest soil for its nest in the bright sun and blue sky.I sometimes observe them in a square without shade.The weather is very hot, and the only way to avoid the scorching sun is to lie behind a small pile of sand, dig your head into a rabbit hole, or prepare yourself a big umbrella.I took the latter approach, and if anyone would come and sit with me under such a big umbrella at the end of July, he (or she) could also feast on my eyes: a flycatcher A bee comes suddenly and stops without hesitation in a place that seems to me like any other place.It has rows of bristles on its front feet that remind you of a broom, a brush or a nail anchor.It works with its front feet and supports its body with its four rear feet.It rakes up the sand and then brushes it back, so quickly that the continuous stream of sand seems to flow seven or eight inches away like a continuous flow of water.This shot of sand grains lasts for about five or ten minutes.

Along with the grains of sand were debris of wood chips, rotting leaves and other waste.The Flycatcher removes all this garbage with its mouth, and that is the purpose of its work.It wants to make the sand in front of its house all light and fine "high-grade sand grains" without any coarse and heavy impurities.That way, when it comes back from catching the flies for the kids, it can easily open a pathway to carry the prey into the hole.This kind of cleaning, it always does in its spare time.For example, when the prey has stored enough for its children to eat for a period of time, it does not need to go out to look for food, then it will take time to clean up the garbage, like a good housewife.We can see that he is very happy and content when he is working hard and diligently.Maybe this is the joy that comes to a mother's heart when she sees her children grow up in the house she built!

If we dig with a penknife in the sand scraped by the mother-bee, we first find a tunnel, as thick as a finger, and perhaps eight or twelve inches long, and then a hut.The hut was large enough to hold three walnuts, but so far contained only one fly and one small white egg, the egg of the Flycatcher.After about twenty-four hours, the egg hatches into a small worm, which grows up by eating dead flies prepared for it by its mother. After about two or three days, the larvae of the Flycatcher have almost finished eating the dead fly.At this time, the mother bee is not very far from home. You can see that it sometimes sucks a few mouthfuls of honey juice from the stamen to satisfy its hunger, and sometimes sits happily on the hot sand—it is guarding its own home.It will often rake some sand at the door of the house, then fly away again, and come back after a while.But no matter how long it stays outside, it will never forget to estimate how long the food in its hut can last. As a mother, its instinct will tell it when its child's food is almost finished, so it will Go back to your nest.As for the nest, as mentioned above, it looks the same as other sandy lands from the outside, without obvious holes or any marks, but it knows exactly where its nest is.Every time it comes back to visit the children, it never forgets to bring back some rich gifts. This time it brings back a big fly. After sending the fly to the underground home, it comes out again by itself until it needs to send the third fly. The time goes on, and the interval is very short, because the appetite of the larva is always good. If the mother bee slacks off a little, her children will starve.

This lasted for two weeks, and the larvae continued to grow.The demand for food is also increasing, and the mother bee is constantly sending food in.By the end of the second week, the larvae have grown fat.The mother redoubled her efforts to find food to feed the hungry child until it was so grown that it no longer needed food from others.I once calculated that the total number of flies that a larva needs to eat in growing up is as many as eighty-two. Sometimes I wonder why this kind of bee doesn't pre-store food like other bees, seal the hole well, and then they can leave by themselves, why bother to wait patiently at the hole entrance?Maybe it's because the dead flies it catches can't hide for too long.But why does it not paralyze the fly like the yellow-winged wasp, but kills it?I speculated that it might be because flies are not the same as caterpillars and crickets after all. They are so light and soft that they will shrink and disappear after a long time.So this thing must be eaten fresh, otherwise it has little value.Another reason may be that the fly is very sensitive and must be caught quickly, unlike the dull caterpillar and the huge cricket, which have obvious targets and slow movements, so that the mother bee has ample time to paralyze them.When necessary, the fly-catcher must use its claws, mouth or sting at any time. Of course, the caught fly cannot be half-dead at will, either to let the fly escape, or to catch a dead fly.The mother bee of course chooses the latter.

It's not easy to watch a flycatcher attack a fly.Because it is always caught far away from the nest.But "you can't find a place if you step through the iron hoof, and it's easy to get here." Once, I saw this wonderful scene by accident, and I was full of eyes.That day I sat under the scorching sun with my umbrella open.I am not the only one enjoying the shade of the umbrella, and various horseflies also hide and rest under my umbrella.They rest peacefully on top of open umbrellas.With nothing to do under the umbrella, I just passed the time admiring their big golden eyes.Those eyes shone like gems under my umbrella.Sometimes a certain part of the umbrella is so hot that they have to move to a part that is not exposed to the sun.I like to watch their serious action.

One day, I was dozing off under the umbrella, and suddenly, with a sound of "bang!", the open umbrella was hit like a skin drum. "What's going on?" I suddenly became sober. Probably an elm fruit fell on the umbrella!I think. But "Bang--saddle, saddle!" came one after another.Which prankster threw seeds or pebbles at my umbrella?I got out of my umbrella shade and looked around, nothing.The voice sounded again, and I looked up at the top of the umbrella, so it was!I finally understood what was going on.The fly-catchers nearby, finding so much rich food in my place, flew over to catch their prey, and all was going as I wished it to be, all I had to do was sit still and watch.

Every fifteen minutes or so, a Flycatcher flew in, dashed straight for the top of the umbrella, and let out a thud.And so the war was waged on the top of the umbrella.It was so exciting and tense, and everyone was playing so hard and evenly matched that you couldn't tell who was the attacker and who was the defender.However, this dispute did not last long.In a few moments the Flycatcher flew away with its captive between its legs.The strange thing is that this stupid swarm of flies still refuses to leave this dangerous place—indeed, it’s too hot outside. Instead of being sunburned to death, it’s better to be "drunk today when you have wine" inside, and enjoy yourself first.

Now, let me observe the bee returning with its prize.When it was approaching its own house, it suddenly made a sharp buzzing sound, which sounded a bit sad and seemed very disturbed.The sound continued until it hit the ground.It hovered above the ground for a while, and then landed cautiously. If its keen eyes found something abnormal, it would slow down its descent, hover above the ground for a few seconds, and then fly up and down again. down, and flew away like an arrow.After a while we see why it hesitates.After a while, it came back again.This time it made a tour of the heights, and then slowly descended to a certain point on the ground - which is really nothing special in my opinion.

I think it probably landed at this point at random, and after landing it had to slowly find the entrance to its nest.But then I realized I had underestimated the Flycatcher again.It happened to land on its nest impartially.It pushed aside some of the sand in front of it, and then pushed its head, and dragged its prey into the nest smoothly.After it went in, the sand beside it immediately piled up the hole and blocked it.This is the same situation I have seen countless times when the flycatcher returned to the nest.I have often wondered why a bee finds the entrance of its nest without hesitation, though it is exactly the same as the adjoining place, and bears no discernible mark.

When the Fly-catcher returns to her nest, she does not circle many times in the air, but does so because she sees that her nest is surrounded by a great danger.Its dreary hum is a sign of its inner sorrow and fear.It would never make such a sound when it was not in danger.So who are its enemies?It turned out to be a small fly, which looked very weak and incompetent.And this fly-catcher, although it is the natural enemy of flies and the executioner of the big horse fly, when it finds itself being watched by this small fly, it will be too frightened to go into the hole.And in fact the little fly was as small as a dwarf, too small to feed its larvae.

This situation seems to be as puzzling as a cat afraid of a mouse.Why didn't the Flycatcher rush down and drive this shameless little fly away?I can't explain this.Perhaps this humble little fly has its own strengths, and occupies a considerable place in the vast universe, just like many ferocious animals.The rules of nature are often beyond our understanding. I shall later see that this fly lays its eggs on the prey which the Flycatcher has placed in the nest.After its larvae hatch, they rob the flycatcher larvae of their nourishment.If there is not enough food, they will not hesitate to eat the larvae of fly traps as a delicacy.So, it is by no means a trivial little fly, but a ruthless killer.It is not for nothing that the Flycatcher is so afraid of it.So how does this tiny fly lay its eggs on the flies' eggs?This is well worth looking into. It never goes near the nest of the fly-trap wasp, but waits patiently for the fly-trap bee to return with its rich prey.When the Flycatcher has got half of its body into the burrow, it rushes down and attaches itself to the dead horsefly, and when the Flycatcher drags the horsefly into the hole with difficulty, the little fly performs amazingly. Velocity lays a single egg on the horsefly, sometimes two or three in succession.From the front half of the flycatcher's body into the hole to the time it completely drags the prey into the hole, it takes only a moment. But in this moment, the little fly has completed its task.Now he could crouch in the sunlight by the hole, ready for his second sneak attack. Usually there are always three or four such small flies appearing near a nest at the same time.They tend to know better about the entrance to the nest.Their dark red complexion, large red eyes, and their amazing patience often remind me of kidnapping.The gangsters were dressed in black, with red cloths wrapped around their heads, quietly hiding in a dark corner, waiting for an opportunity to stop the passing guests. The poor Flycatcher's hesitation was caused by the sight of such a rogue at the door.It knew that those gangsters would definitely do bad things.But in the end it flew into its own home.And these little rogue flies fly up and follow him, and as he goes, they go;In the end it couldn't hold on any longer and had to rest its feet, and those little gangsters also rested, but they still followed behind.So the Flycatcher flew up again, with an angry whimper.These shameless little gangsters still have the cheek and urgency to give up.The Flycatcher had no choice but to think of another way, find another way, and fly at a relatively high speed, hoping that its enemies could not keep up with it and eventually lost its way.Unexpectedly, the group of young gangsters had already expected this move, and turned back to the cave entrance to wait for it to come back.Sure enough, after a while, the flycatchers who thought they had escaped the danger came back, and the gang of gangsters hurriedly got up and chased after them.The patience of the mother bees was gone, and finally they found a chance to lay eggs. Fortunately the flycatcher we have just been speaking of suffered no such misfortune, so let us conclude this chapter.The larvae of the bee eat the food left by their mothers and grow up slowly.After two weeks, it started to make cocoons.But there is not enough silk in its body, so it must be mixed with sand grains to increase its hardness.It piled up the leftover food in one corner of the hut, first swept the ground, and then put up beautiful white silk between the walls.It climbs the silk into a net first, and then starts the second step. It makes a hammock in the center of the net.The hammock is like a bag, closed at one end and with a small hole in the other.The larvae of the flycatcher stretch out half of their bodies outside the bed, and use their mouths to pick out sand grains one by one. If the sand grains are too large, they don't like them, and they will throw them away immediately.After selection, it picks up the sand one by one and spreads it evenly around the hammock bag, just like a plasterer inserts stones into plaster. Hitherto the cocoon was open at one end, and it had to seal it.It is made of silk into a hat, just big enough to cover the opening of the cocoon, and on top of this, grains of sand are embedded.Now the cocoon can be said to be done.But the flycatcher still has some repairs to do in the cocoon.It smears a layer of grout on the walls to keep its delicate skin from being scratched or scratched by the sand.After that, it can sleep peacefully.Soon it will become an adult flycatcher, just like its mother.