Many of the animals build shelters and dwellings of various complexity and sophistication. It is, of course, about wasps, bees and ants.

OS constructions

Many species of wasps build their nests in hollows, in the ground or inside human buildings. In the middle zone of Russia there is a wasp called paper. She received such a nickname, as she builds her nests from wood fibers, carefully ground by jaws and mixed with saliva. The result is a material similar in appearance and quality to wrapping paper. From it, the wasp builds the shell of its nest and the cell in it.

If you look inside this building, you can see there are many horizontal rows of cells located one above the other. Each cell contains either a larva or eggs. The dimensions of such a nest vary from 3-4 cm to two meters in diameter. The most interesting thing is that a small aspen family erects a structure of similar sizes in one summer.

Wasps of other species, many of which also live in Russia, build their nests from a variety of plant fibers, silt, clay, or even from dust and tiny grains of sand. So, for example, an eumene wasp enters, around its egg laying it builds from a dust, fragments of minerals and even from small shells a kind of jug that looks more like jewelry than building a small wasp.

Bee building

They simply amaze with their perfection the wax honeycombs of bees. Each ordinary frame with honeycombs contains approximately 7-8 thousand cells.They have a characteristic hexagonal shape, optimal in terms of material costs, capacity, strength and heat transfer.

Cells in bees perform a variety of functions - from storing stocks to cradles for young individuals. The average cell volume in domestic bees is about 1 cubic centimeter. There are also special honeycombs: some for breeding drones, and others for growing the uterus.

Domestic bees live in a large family, but there are single bees. For example, we have the Andren bee, which lives in special vertical burrows, from them in all directions, they lead short passages to the earthen cell. In each of them there is a larva and lumps of food from pollen and honey.

Khalid bees often build their strange nests on walls or stones. Their main material is dust and saliva. Another type of bee is leaf-cutting, who build their “hives” in abandoned burrows of insects or worms.

Inside their nests, they cover all surfaces with perfectly even pieces of leaves (round or oval). Here, they place special containers for eggs - cut from leaves leaves with carefully fitted lids. Upholstery bees often use petals of various colors as material.

Ant Buildings

There are a huge number of species of ants, and each of them builds its own anthill, unlike the design of other species. On the territory of Russia, dwellings of red ants are often found in coniferous forests, characteristic cones are up to three meters high and in diameter.Ants build their home from straws, leaves and their petioles, dry twigs and the like.

The top of the cone is usually decorated with needles, densely lying in rows, according to the same principle that is used by people in the construction of village houses covered with straw. This principle allows for tightness and ensures that water does not enter the anthill. The upper layer of any anthill is usually much looser than the one adjacent from below. This is necessary for effective ventilation.

In the cone of the anthill and in the ground under it are located thousands of different purposes of chambers, niches and halls. In them, ants carefully and carefully store their eggs, larvae and pupae. The rooms are interconnected by corridors reaching a length of 150-200 meters.

In the dungeons of each anthill there is a network of drainage tunnels. Moreover, depending on the average temperature, the builders of the anthill make its cone either more gentle or steeper. There are many ventilation ducts in the cone. They participate not only in the ventilation of the anthill, but also in its heating.

In summer, ants live in the upper cone, and in winter they move to deep dungeons below the freezing level of the soil.

In the construction of their home, ants use three types of tools:

• Stinging as a grasping tool;
• Closed mandibles are a kind of scoop;
• The front legs are a pair of shoulder blades.

Many tropical species are built by anthills up to 100 cubic meters. In addition to the already mentioned types of premises, they also have special ones for growing food, for example, mushrooms (among Atta leaf-cutting ants). In depth, such anthills reach 10 meters.

In the same places where floods often occur, ants settle in trees.For example, tailor ants do this. Having decided to build an anthill, they work together to bring together suitable leaves, and then, using a special glue secreted by their larvae, connect them together. Often, in this way, tailor ants sew all the leaves on a tree, building a huge anthill on the tree.