Lucite Paperweight - Clear (3 Blocks Set)

Real Bamboo Carpenter Bee - Xylocopa iridipennis, Honey Bee -Apis mellifera and Lesser Banded Tiger Hornet - Vespa affinis specimen encased in rectangular indestructible, transparent lucite block. Safe, authentic and completely unbreakable product put real specimens right at your fingertips!

Anyone can safely explore the specimens from every angle.

They are clear enough for microscope observation.

Length of the bees body are 2.3 cm (0.9 inch) and 1.2 cm (0.5 inch), hornet body is 2.6 cm (1.0 inch).

Size of each lucite block is 4.5x3.0x2.0 cm (1.8x1.2x0.8 inch)

Weight of each block is 30 gram and 45 gram with packing box.

This is a handmade real animal specimen craft. Each one will be a bit different (specimen size, color and posture) even in the same production batch.
The pictures in the listing are just for reference as we are selling multiple pieces with same pictures.
 

They are ideal learning aid for students and kids and also a very good collectible item.

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Bamboo Carpenter Bee - Xylocopa iridipennis

It makes its nest in an internode of dead bamboo stem. Using its large mandibles it gnaws a hole in the bamboo stem and then makes its small nest in the hollow internode within.

The bees feed on nectar from flowers and can often be seen foraging at flowers of Bauhinnia, Ligustrum, Buddleia and other trees and shrubs where their size and loud wing-buzzing as they fly make them readily recognizable.

Honey Bee - Apis mellifera

The Western honey bee or European honey bee (Apis mellifera) is a species of honey bee. This species was introduced to China from early 20th century and has been raised widely around the country.

In the temperate zone, honey bees survive winter as a colony, and the queen begins egg laying in mid to late winter, to prepare for spring. This is most likely triggered by longer day length. She is the only fertile female, and deposits all the eggs from which the other bees are produced. Except a brief mating period when she may make several flights to mate with drones, or if she leaves in later life with a swarm to establish a new colony, the queen rarely leaves the hive after the larvae have become full grown bees. The queen deposits each egg in a cell prepared by the worker bees. The egg hatches into a small larva which is fed by nurse bees (worker bees who maintain the interior of the colony). After about a week, the larva is sealed up in its cell by the nurse bees and begins the pupal stage. After another week, it will emerge an adult bee.

For the first ten days of their lives, the female worker bees clean the hive and feed the larvae. After this, they begin building comb cells. On days 16 through 20, a worker receives nectar and pollen from older workers and stores it. After the 20th day, a worker leaves the hive and spends the remainder of its life as a forager. The population of a healthy hive in mid-summer can average between 40,000 and 80,000 bees.

Lesser Banded Tiger Hornet - Vespa affinis

Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Vespidae
Genus: Vespa

This is a small to medium-sized hornet, with queens reaching 30mm, males 26mm and workers being an average of 22 to 25mm. There are several geographical forms or subspecies; the ones found in South China are generally mainly black, with the first two abdominal segments being a deep yellow, forming a conspicuous band. The sides of the head and thorax show some reddish brown. On the other hand, specimens from Southeast Asian regions such as Singapore are fully black, without reddish brown markings, and the abdominal band is a brilliant orange.

This species is widespread throughout Asia. It can frequently be seen foraging close to the ground in grassy areas, forest and wasteland. This species seems to prey heavily on flies which can be pests. It can frequently be found on the beach, staying near rotting mussels which smell bad and attract flies. Initially, I assumed they were taking the mussel meat to feed their larvae, but it turned out that they were simply creeping into the mussel shells and hiding there to ambush the flies! They also love the nectar from flowers of the coconut tree, and often, after drinking their fill, conveniently grab a honeybee from a nearby flower and head for home. Besides these, they will also attack any small insect they can overpower. They will also collect meat from freshly dead insects.

The nest of Vespa affinis is usually high in a tree, although on occasion they build lower. It is generally elongated, and looks similar to the nest of Vespa velutina. However, it can be distinguished by having a more imbricate nest envelope (many individual overlapping circular layers of papering, as opposed to running vertically lengthwise), and the nest has a tough, durable appearance. It can often reach 60 cm in length in sub-tropical areas, and even larger in true tropical regions. Also, there is an interesting variation of nest shapes; in tropical areas, the top of the nest is very narrow but tapers out downwards, forming a "pear-shaped" or "drop-shaped" structure. Nests in subtropical regions are simply oval with a rounded top. In South China, this species has an average life cycle; the queens awake from hibernation in April, and the colony usually dies only in late November. In fully tropical areas, it seems present all the time. This species is known for multiple queen founding or even swarm founding (known in scientific terms as pleometrosis) in tropical regions, where several queens or multiple queens with a swarm of workers from the old colony start a new nest together.