Mass provisioning is a form of parental investment[1] in which an adult insect, most commonly a hymenopteran such as a bee or wasp, stocks all the food for each of her offspring in a small chamber (a "cell") before she lays the egg. This behavior is common in both solitary and eusocial bees, though essentially absent in eusocial wasps.
- ^ Danforth, Bryan N. (1990). "Provisioning behavior and the estimation of investment ratios in a solitary bee, Calh'opsis (Hypomacrotera) persimilis (Cockerell) (Hymenoptera: Andrenidae)" (PDF). Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 27 (3): 159–168. doi:10.1007/BF00180299. S2CID 2144041.