Bees nest

[Al Duffill]

Hi, I saw this today, loads of fras and wood at the base of an urban oak tree, I had a look in the hole and couldn’t really make anything out, then I noticed a bee entering a hole near the site on the same tree, I’m guessing it’s a bee nest, some nice Ganoderma too.

[Stere]

What is  fras?

 

 

 

 

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, Stere said:

What is  fras?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frass

 

"Frass refers loosely to the more or less solid excreta of insects, and to certain other related matter. "

 

So we normally see it as fragments of wood dust at boring insect exit holes.

 

The OP's picture looks a bit more like an animal has collected material for a nest unrelated to the bees

[surveyor]

Looks a bit like the debris of the carpenter ants.

[Al Duffill]

It is quite large frass certainly, when does frass not become frass because of its size? Maybe there’s a mammal nesting in there, I’ll check out the carpenter ant and pay another visit.

[openspaceman]

18 minutes ago, Al Duffill said:

when does frass not become frass because of its size?

How big do insects' arseholes get?

[the village idiot]

32 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

How big do insects' arseholes get?

The insect with the largest recorded 'hind quarters' is the South American Derriere beetle.

 

Posterius bulbousum

 

Apparently it's back end is so distended that the beetle cannot locomote, and lives out it's entire adult stage confined to the same spot.

The insect is slowly raised up from the forest floor, perched atop a thin pole of it's own excrement.

 

Eventually the beetle is blown off by a gust of wind and the process starts again.

 

The tallest recorded 'poo pile' was discovered under a phlange palm in Bolivia. It measured 23ft in height! 

Derriere beetle expert Dr Cornelius Crump of Yabbadabbadoo University has posited that the spire could have eventually topped 30ft or more had the beetle not crushed itself to death under a developing coconut.

 

[Conor Wright]

The bee pictured is a bumblebee, most likely bombus lucorum. Usually have small nests of 2 to 400 and while they use hollow trees on occasion they prefer to use old rodent burrows in soil or cracks in old stone walls. To my knowledge they are not capable of excavating volumes of material as shown in the pictures. It looks as if there may be some larvae in the woodchip, but it could equally be pieces of bark.. maybe something else was trying to get at the nest and enlarged the hole by scratching at it?
While I cant be sure for bumbles, I keep honey bees and that "frass" looks massive compared to the fine particles they produce.. it's more commonly the secretions from the larvae than the adults, which is usually seen as tiny black circles, (often a sign of nosema if it gets runny) usually sticking where it lands. Frass is fairly dry and will blow away like fine sawdust. It may vary between species.

[Boo Who?]

Were there any holes higher in the trunk?
I had two woodpecker holes about three feet apart on a live willow trunk a couple of days ago. The lower hole was spilling out similar looking material since they began excavating the higher cavity.
Not suggesting it’s woodpeckers that low down but if the gano has caused hollowing in the buttress and sending decay up the stem, any disturbance higher up will result in the ‘frass’ piling up in the bottom of the cavity?!
Any small mammal could use a hole like that though... often found a family of voles nesting in the hollow of a rotting pop once it’s gone over, just cut a biscuit and pop it on the stump to leave them with a roof!

[peatff]

On 31/05/2019 at 23:33, the village idiot said:

The insect with the largest recorded 'hind quarters' is the South American Derriere beetle.

 

Posterius bulbousum

 

Apparently it's back end is so distended that the beetle cannot locomote, and lives out it's entire adult stage confined to the same spot.

The poor creature is the butt of many an insect joke