And here is the story behind this cartoon https://nonhoneybees.com/2023/11/27/attenzione-pickpocket/
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And one more meme from Non-honey bees
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Counted a lot of those yesterday… is that a bird and moon comic?
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I don’t know. My niece texted it to me.
Edit: it’s by Rosemary Mosco so I guess it is.
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Well, seeing as it features both of those…
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In tiny pearl grey letters, bottom right, below the cartoon …
Yellow flashing tail lights pointing that way 
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I remember seeing an observation (from North America, I think) with a honeybee that was doing this. I hadn’t realized that it was thing. I guess it makes sense, though – why go to all that effort collecting pollen yourself if you can steal it pre-collected from someone else?
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Interesting question and I could think of some reasons, in fact :) For example, that interaction with another individual involves some risk of injury (even if in most observed cases the victims were not aggressive towards thief) or getting diseases; or that getting pollen from the bee doesn’t allow to control for type of pollen (quality, species composition etc)
It is of course possible that with rising densities of honeybees and/or in low supply of flowers, this strategy will prove more beneficial and honeybees will show it more often
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This would be something interesting to look more into. Bees are so smart and adaptive (to an extent, ofc) I wouldn’t be suprised if they used this strategy more.
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I hope that thanks to this recent paper people will get more alert for such observations, and also if it becomes more frequent then will be more likely to be spotted during other research. I never seen this behaviour during my studies and will keep my eyes open in the future.
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I found the observation I was thinking of (it turns out I had favorited it) along with another example of pollen theft.
I don’t think there are enough records of this on iNat at present to make it worthwhile to create a project specifically for them, but I created one for interactions between different bee species in general: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/interspecific-bee-interactions
(This also provides a place to put observations of confused males trying to mate with bees several times their size, territorial disputes, and other encounters.)
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These are awesome. I love the art style too.
Tales from the Field is relatable, sounds like me on every hike with family/friends :)
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Good that it’s a male then.
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Someones a thinker…
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Ever catch male velvet ants? It appears very dangerous.
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