Bats spotted cohabiting with bees in same tree in Katong S'pore

Just hanging around.

Guan Zhen Tan | February 14, 2021, 03:47 PM

A nursery school located in Katong recently requested the services of Nutrinest, which provides beehive removal services, by humanely rehoming them.

Bees and bats hanging out with each other

A colony of Apis Florea bees, which are Red Dwarf Honey Bees, had made a beehive in a tree at the preschool in the eastern part of Singapore.

Photo via Nutrinest's Facebook video
Such bees are commonly found in parks and gardens, and would usually construct a small comb that hangs from a thin branch of a shrub or tree.

However, this rehoming was particularly unusual.

There was not one, but three bats cohabiting with the colony in the very same tree.

Xavier Tan, who runs Nutrinest, posted a video on Facebook documenting this interesting sight.

Three bats can be seen hanging from the branches of the tree, staring quizzically at Tan as he panned the camera.

Photo via Nutrinest's Facebook video

Chance sighting

Bees and bats are both pollinators, but they don't usually get documented cohabiting in the same space.

Bats can be insectivorous (insect-eating) but they don't usually eat bees.

While bees go about pollinating plants in the day, bats do so for many fruits, and plants that bloom at night.

In Singapore, there are about 25 species of bats and three main types of bees that form colonies, along with over 100 species of solitary bees, which live in small groups.

Top image via Nutrinest's Facebook page