I love weird scents, and am constantly on the lookout for something unusual. So on the way to looking up a source for some materials that I want to tincture (I’ll write about them in another post) I found
this South African website which is a store and several blogs all in one. I was thrilled to see a
fascinating post about how male African orchid bees create their own signature scents by collecting aromatic materials from flowers, rotten wood and fruit, feces, and tree resins, concentrating them in special lipid-containing pockets on their legs in a process similar to
enfleurage. Each bee creates his own signature scent. Presumably the more materials a male bee collects and the more attractive the resulting perfume, the better he is at attracting females. The ultimate "chick magnet".
I never cease to marvel at the ingenuity of nature. If I were independently wealthy I would take a trip to South Africa just to smell a euglossine bee’s leg pockets. How wonderful and weird would that be?
[Photo of an insect that appears to be an orchid bee adapted from Wikimedia]
Thank you for the great link to the South African website. I have never been to SA but I have several friends, students and old teachers who lived or went to school there. One of my closest friends used to send me all kinds of stuff about South African orchids and I still have post cards and paperwork in my collection of paper ephemera from an early 1980's World Orchid Conference in South Africa. I would like to go there someday to look at orchids and perhaps to smell the bees? Gail
ReplyDeleteHi Gail! I would love to visit South Africa someday to look at orchids and smell the bees. The natural environment sounds like an amazing place.
ReplyDeletePerfumer bees, I love it! (one bee to another- "I prefer fougeres myself...." ;-)
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who leads treks in SA and someday, I hope to go on one. So many unique species, and I want to see proteas in their native environment.
-Marla
Marla, how can you not love "perfumer bees"? I wonder if they prefer gourmand scents (by their standards)?
ReplyDeleteThis has really made me want to visit South Africa.