Back to Show
Deep Look
Stop! Thief! Carpenter Bees are Notorious Nectar Robbers
Season 9
Episode 10
With their short tongues, Valley carpenter bees can’t easily drink the nectar from tubular flowers. So they use powerful mandibles to slice into the blooms and steal it. It’s called nectar robbing, since the plants don’t get the benefit of being pollinated by these enormous bees.
Support Provided By
3:57
Do cockroaches -- daring, disgusting disease vectors -- have anything at all to offer us?
5:42
Covered in a shiny bubble, the alkali fly scuba dives in California's Mono Lake.
4:58
A “bee fly” is a freeloader that takes advantage of a bindweed turret bee’s hard work.
4:05
The scaled wormsnail cements its shell to a rock and snags its meals using mucus!
4:04
Step right up to see tiny springtails spin through the air with the greatest of ease!
3:44
Geckos navigate nearly any surface with an electron dance at the atomic scale.
3:22
Bird’s nest fungi look just like a tiny bird's nest. But those little eggs have no yolks.
3:36
How are frogs so amazing at catching bugs? It’s their supersoft tongue and special spit.
4:00
Mussels create byssal threads to attach themselves to rocks and each other.
4:10
Earthworms cozy up with a mate inside tubes of slime to make cocoons full of baby worms.
3:52
What keeps the boneless, jawless hagfish thriving after more than 300 million years? SLIME