Bees for the Birds 
photographs by Javier Echevarri and Mila Olano 
The European bee eater, Merops apiaster, belongs to an Old World family 
of brightly colored, insectivorous birds. Many of the insects bee eaters catch — 
bees and wasps primarily — are venomous, and all species are adapted, in 
behavior and morphology, to their hazardous prey. The birds’ long, pointed 
wings fit them for twisting flight, while their long, inflexible bill, decurved to 
a sharp point, is useful in catching stinging insects. 
Bee eaters hunt while in flight or in dashes from a perch, usually a tree 
branch or telegraph wire. Large species, such as the eleven-inch-long Merops 
apiaster , may hunt from as high as 300 feet and sometimes feed in flight, 
mostly on soft-bodied, nonvenomous insects. Before eating venomous prey, 
however, the bee eater returns to a perch to remove the poison. After 
manipulating its catch into a good working position, the bird raps the insect’s 
head sharply on the perch; then, altering its grip, it rubs the insect’s abdomen 
on the perch to force the venom out. The bird can then safely eat the insect or 
deliver it to the young waiting in the nest (below). 
All bee eaters are single brooded and nest in burrows, excavated most often 
in a bank or cliff, occasionally in level ground. Merops apiaster breeds from 
western Siberia and Kashmir to North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, 
where these photographs were taken. It generally nests in dense colonies; 
sometimes, however, only a few pairs are seen nesting in an area. 
After arriving from their wintering grounds in tropical and southern Africa 
and northwestern India, a breeding pair of European bee eaters choose a nest 
site and begin to excavate. They loosen the soil with their bills, then use their 
