Male solitary bees typically use emergence‐nesting areas and/or flower patches of food plants, where receptive females are relatively numerous, as rendezvous sites. However, mate‐seeking males have been also observed at food‐deceptive orchid patches, where numerous encounters with foraging females can hardly be expected, owing to the lack of floral rewards. Here, we describe the male mate‐seeking and mating behaviors of the Japanese long‐horned bee Eucera nipponensis at habitats of the food‐deceptive orchid Cymbidium goeringii. On the basis of the results, we report empty flower patches are not necessarily fruitless sites for mate‐seeking males because naive female bees, which are highly likely to be recently emerged and unmated, can be attracted to non‐rewarding orchids. We also suggest a possibility that a small number of the males could receive a “sexual reward” (i.e. mating opportunities), owing to the food‐deceptive orchid, in return for their pollination work. This occasional interaction could represent the initial stage in the evolution of sexually deceptive orchids from food‐deceptive orchids.

中文翻译：

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Eucera nipponensis（膜翅目：Apidae）在无花蜜兰花栖息地的雄性寻找和交配行为：空花斑块是有利可图的交会地点吗？

雄性独居蜜蜂通常使用出现巢区和/或食用植物的花斑，在这些地方，接受雌性的蜜蜂相对较多，作为交会地点。然而，在食物欺骗性的兰花斑块中也观察到了寻找配偶的雄性，由于缺乏花卉奖励，在那里很难预料会遇到大量觅食的雌性。在这里，我们描述了日本长角蜂 Eucera nipponensis 在食物欺骗性兰花 Cymbidium goeringii 栖息地的雄性寻找和交配行为。根据这些结果，我们报告说，空花斑对于寻求交配的雄性来说不一定是没有结果的，因为很可能最近出现和未交配的幼稚雌性蜜蜂可能会被无回报的兰花所吸引。我们还提出了一种可能性，即由于食物欺骗性兰花，少数雄性可以获得“性奖励”（即交配机会），以换取它们的授粉工作。这种偶尔的相互作用可能代表了从食物欺骗性兰花进化为性欺骗性兰花的初始阶段。