The European bee-eater (Merops apiaster) is a near passerine bird in the bee-eater family, Meropidae. As their name suggests, these brightly-colored birds predominantly eat flying insects, especially bees and wasps, which they catch on the wing from an open perch.
The European bee-eater is a richly coloured, slender bird. It has brown and yellow upper parts, whilst the wings are green and the beak is black. Sexes are alike. Female tends to have greener rather than gold feathers on their shoulders. Non-breeding plumage is much duller and with a blue-green back and no elongated central tail feathers. The juvenile resembles a non-breeding adult but with less variation in the feather colours. Adults begin to moult in June or July and complete the process by August or September. There is a further moult into breeding plumage in winter in Africa.
European bee-eaters breed in southern and central Europe, northern and southern Africa, and western Asia. These birds are strongly migratory and spend winter in tropical Africa. The southern African population is resident and remains year-round in its native range. European bee-eaters breed in open country in warmer climates. They prefer to live in woods, river valleys, meadows and plains, hillsides, riverbanks with some shrubs, cultivated areas with some trees, pastures, rice fields, and semi-deserts. In Africa, they inhabit savannas, near lakes, and in cultivated areas.
European bee-eaters are gregarious birds. They nest colonially and feed and roost communally. European bee-eaters are active during the day spending most of their time foraging. They catch insects in flight, in sorties from an open perch. Before eating a bee, the bee-eater removes the sting by repeatedly hitting the insect on a hard surface. It can eat around 250 bees a day. European bee-eaters are vocal birds, especially during foraging and migration. Their common call is a distinctive, mellow, liquid, and burry ‘prreee’ or ‘prruup’ and can be heard on long distances. When at the nest sites these birds are usually more quiet.
European bee-eaters are monogamous and form pair bonds that remain together year after year. During courtship, the male feeds large items to the female while eating the small ones himself. Colonies nest in sandy banks, preferably near river shores, usually at the beginning of May. The pair excavates a relatively long tunnel, sometimes with the assistance of some “helpers”, in which females lay 5 to 8 spherical white eggs around the beginning of June. Both parents care for the eggs, which they brood for about 3 weeks. The chicks hatch blind and naked. The young leave the nest approximately 1 month after hatching but parents and “helpers” continue to feed them for about 3 weeks more after fledging. Young European bee-eaters become reproductively mature and start to breed when they are 1 year old.
European bee-eaters are not considered threatened at present. However, these birds are killed in some countries for consumption or as pests. They also suffer from the use of pesticides which reduce populations of their insect prey. The loss of their nesting habitat can also pose a serious threat in the future. Canalization of rivers leads to the loss of river banks in which bee-eaters make their nest tunnels.
This bird breeds in open country in warmer climates. As the name suggests, bee-eaters predominantly eat insects, especially bees, wasps, and hornets. They catch insects in flight, in sorties from an open perch. Before eating a bee, the European bee-eater removes the sting by repeatedly hitting the insect on a hard surface. It can eat around 250 bees a day.
The most important prey item in their diet is Hymenoptera, mostly the European honey bee. A study in Spain found that these comprise 69.4% to 82% of the European bee-eaters' diet. Their impact on bee populations, however, is small. They eat less than 1% of the worker bees in areas where they live.
A study found that European bee-eaters "convert food to body weight more efficiently if they are fed a mixture of bees and dragonflies than if they eat only bees or only dragonflies."
If an apiary is set up close to a bee-eater colony, a larger number of honey bees are eaten because they are more abundant. However, studies show the bee-eaters do not intentionally fly into the apiary, rather they feed on the insects caught on pastures and meadows within a radius of 12 km (7.5 mi) from the colony, this maximum distance being reached only when there is a lack of food. Observations show that the birds actually enter the apiary only in cold and rainy periods, when the bees do not leave the hive and other insect prey are harder for the bee-eaters to detect.
Many bee-keepers believe that the bee-eaters are the main obstacle causing worker bees not to forage, and instead stay inside the hives for much of the day between May and the end of August. However, a study carried out in eucalyptus forest in the Alalous region, 80 km (50 mi) east of Tripoli Libya, showed that the bee-eaters were not the main obstacle of bee foraging, which is the opposite of what beekeepers think. The foraging rate was higher in presence of the birds than in their absence in some cases. The average bird meal consisted of 90.8% honey bees and 9.2% beetles.
Predation is more likely when the bees are queening or during peak migrations, from late March till mid-April, and in mid-September. Hives close to or under trees or overhead cables are also at increased risk as the birds pounce on flying insects from these perches.
