Condo dwellers

The main reason to have a bee condo is to see cool stuff.

Don't condos provide a "home" for bees and other pollinators? Yes...technically. We can also "survey" for pollinators using the condos.

But let's face it. Bee condos are for humans. To see cool stuff.

The typical condo "dwellers" are solitary bees and wasps. You can watch them provisioning nests in the condo, as they fly away and return with food.

One of the most common condo dwellers is Osmia (mason bees):

Also leafcutter bees:

Sometimes you get "SQUATTERS" in the condo. These are insects living in the condo, but not really in the way it was intended (by us humans). Spiders, for instance.

This "squatter" was making a nest on the back wall of a condo where the reeds had fallen out:

And finally.. there are condo "LURKERS." These are parasites that lay in wait for bees or other condo dwellers to leave on a foraging trip, then sneak inside to lay their own eggs.  Pretty smart!

A classic "lurker":

Chrysidid wasp.

All photos taken at Red Butte Garden.

Thanks Red Butte Garden for hosting bee condos in the Natural Area this year!

Wool carder bees

I have a new favorite bee...

Anthidium.

AKA, "wool carder bees":

Wool carder bees are about the size of a honeybee, but have wasp-like yellow and black markings. The difference: BEES are stout and round-shaped, whereas wasps have a skinny "waist" and look like cold-blooded killers.

Adorable Anthidium bees scrape the wooly plant fibers off leaves, called "carding." Females use the soft fibers to provision a wooly nest.

And the males?  Too fast to photograph! 

Go see them!!

WHAT? Male Anthidium on patrol.  A must see.

WHERE? A sizeable patch (>1m square) of lamb's ear (aka rose campion) in FULL SUN

WHEN?  NOW!

All photos are Anthidium females.  Pollen grains are visible, carried on the underside of the abdomen. 

Do you think she's waving at me? I like to think so.

Bee condos

My bee condos look like this:

They are from Mason Bees LLC. They char the reeds with a blow torch, which mason bees in Utah seem to like.

There are 20 of my bee condos in Salt Lake City. Most are in public spaces.

The point? To survey for stick-nesting bees. Bee condos are also very useful for "bee watching" if you put one in your yard.

Bee Watching looks like this:

Kathlyn Collins, Gardening Coach, laid back.

Most of my condos are hanging in trees....

Clockwise from top left: Bobsled bike trail, City Creek, Jordan River, and another in City Creek.

And 16 more.... map here.

Leafcutter bees

Have you seen these?

Photos by Africa of "Bug Blog"

Oval-shaped leaf cutouts?

Have no fear!

You are providing 'plaster' for the leafcutter bees. They will NOT do permanent damage to your rose bushes!

Leafcutter bees can be identified by the way they hold their abdomens slightly tipped in the air. The yellow or orange pollen on the underside is clearly visible.

Leafcutter bees are primo bee watching.

Tis the season for leafcutters!

"Bee washing"

A form of "greenwashing," "bee-washing" is corporate PR/spin showing concern for bees! 

Ever since Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) was publicized in 2006-2007, bee declines have been in the news. People are concerned. And so, corporations were soon to follow with 'save the bees' campaigns.

"Bee-washing" is spin. Just like 'green' PR, designed to convey environmental friendliness, 'bee-friendly' PR is designed to help a corporation's image, sometimes deflecting from larger corporate practices or products that hurt bees.

Ha!!!

The term "bee-washing" was coined a few years ago after Monsanto, the massive agribusiness selling genetically modified seed and farm chemicals, bought the largest bee research company studying CCD.  Since that time, let's just say the overuse of chemicals in agriculture is no longer considered the number one cause of bee die-offs, according to Monsanto and friends. 

More raspberries

Anyone who has a sizeable raspberry patch knows that bees LOVE raspberries. Watch a raspberry patch on a calm, sunny day, and you will see a variety of bees. And not just bees! Raspberries attract wasps, flies, beetles, and spiders too. 

So... Don't just grow raspberries for the delicious fruit. Grow raspberries for the beneficial insect community you will attract -- pest-eaters AND pollinators.

Keep in mind: pesticides will kill bees and other beneficial insects.

A healthy insect community in your garden means less work. Insect diversity = natural pest control and pollination services, without intervention.  Pretty cool.

Raspberry Management for Utah (USU Extension)

How to Grow Raspberries  in Utah (Deseret News)

Honeybee swarms

Whoa there!!!  Bees are "cute" and all, but a bee swarm can be alarming.

Have no fear!

Call a local beekeeper if you ever have a swarm.

Swarms are formed when the beehive splits in two. One half of the honeybee colony stays behind (with all the honey stores, and new queen about to hatch) and the other half 1) gorges on honey, then 2) takes off together---with the old queen---and looks for a new place to live.

Honeybee swarms are usually very docile.  They have no honey or home to protect...they are simply looking for a new home.

Related...

The cigarette is a nice touch, no?

Chinese man sets the Guinness world record for the number of swarming bees on one's body: 1.1 million!

Group living

The ground-nesting bees of my previous post are "sweat bees," in the genus Halictus. 

Sweat bees get their name because they are attracted to perspiration (and lick it up). 

But the most interesting thing about sweat bees is their social behavior.

Many sweat bees are very flexible about roommates. They are solitary bees sometimes, and sometimes co-habitate. When they co-habitate, using the same nest entrance, one female might be the 'egg-layer' and she will aggressively keep the others them from laying eggs. Subordinate females (usually daughters of the principal egg-layer) will make foraging trips, stand guard at the entrance, or work on underground construction projects.. and if something happens to the dominant female, a subordinate will step into her place. If the group is big enough, subordinates can get away with laying eggs anyway. And sometimes there is no queen at all, or the females are all unrelated and have a more communal arrangement.

Here are 2 females from the same nest. On the left is the 'guard' bee. The other (on the rock) just returned from a foraging trip. Once the guard recognizes a nestmate, she will move aside.

Watching bees doing their thing... oh man.. bees make the best pets!

Ground-nesting bees

The holy grail of bees.

Consider that 70% of bees live underground. 

Well.... where are they??

Ground-nesting bees can be pretty hard to find.  Most are dispersed in solitary holes that are well-hidden... unless you see a bee coming or going, the holes are invisible.

Unless of course, you are down on the ground like a bee nerd, looking for them.

To encourage ground-nesting bees in your yard, keep some patches of well-drained soil with sun exposure BARE and UNDISTURBED - no tilling and no mulch.

And most importantly... DO NOT USE PESTICIDES IN YOUR YARD.  Consider alternatives.

Raspberries

A cloudy day, but there were many honeybees, bumblebees, and wasps working this patch.

The big O

"O" is for "Osmia."  Sexy, I know.

Osmia are mason bees - a very diverse group that includes 139 North American species. They all have a habit of plastering their nests with various substances: mud, plant material, sand, gravel, resin, or wood pith. Or flowers - check this!

Mason bees are easily managed in your backyard. They will colonize bee condos, which you can buy or make yourself.

There are several common Osmia species in Salt Lake City. Every year they come out in the same sequence, starting with O. lignaria ("blue orchard bee") in early April.

Followed by O. ribifloris, O. californica, O. montana, and O. texana, each 1-2 weeks apart.

All photo credits: www.bugguide.net (except the blurry one, mine...)

Rain rain go away

Wet bees are not happy bees.

Here's what to do if you are incredibly soft-hearted like I am, and find one.

 www.photgraphyblog.com                            Megachile perihirta (male)

 http://macrojunkie.deviantart.com          Megachile perihirta (male) - these guys clearly get stuck in the rain a lot :)

I'm kidding about the rain. It is glorious... Mostly because we need it desperately.

But it's terrible for bee watching.

Flies are people, too

Lots of flies were visiting the wild strawberries I observed today at Red Butte Garden. They are probably the most important insect for strawberry pollination.

Flies are important pollinators for many plants.. But fly conservation is not as straightforward as it is for bees.  Also, flies are not as "cute" as fuzzy bees are.  Their behavior is rather alien.

This may not be the norm everywhere, I'm just putting it out there...

Consider ALL the pollinators putting fruits on your table!

Now, back to the bees....

Strawberries

Wild Strawberries are growing at Red Butte Garden. The sizeable patch attracts plenty of insect visitors.

I observed mostly small bees:

For scale, these strawberry flowers were ~ 3/4" across. This bee looks like a tiny carpenter bee, genus Ceratina.

Truth be told, I saw mostly flies visiting this strawberry patch.

Magic box owl & owlet

Too cute... I climbed the tree to collect a bee leaving the box and decided to peek inside. As you can see, the owl and owlet were absolutely DEAD asleep. So much for my worry about disturbing them..

Western screech owls living below 1+ unknown species of mason bee.

Who knew owls could live peacefully below a bee apartment complex? Or, that bees would think nothing of provisioning their nests inches from an owl family.. I suppose this might happen often in trees but we seldom get a view of it.

Life is short

One month? 6 weeks? Depends on who you talk to..

The life span of a bee is short.

Even a honeybee "worker" lives for only one month.

The spring mason bee season is winding down, at least for the bees in the backyard mason bee study. That means all the baby mason bees are either hibernating already or will be very soon....

Just an illustration of how important diversity is for wild bee pollination. Each bee has its season and its role.  To ensure pollination, attract as many species as you can!

Magic box

Mystery mason bees living in a bird box! 

We won't know what kind of bees these are until the owls have fledged. Will be taking a sample of this very unique "conglomeration" then.. The bee experts in Logan think there may be a few different species of mason bees mashed together in here.

The suspense is killing me...

Progress

One female mason bee typically fills several 'nests' (=reeds, in this case) during her lifetime. Solitary bees typically live four to six weeks. 

Inside each completed nest (below, plugged with green leaf material), is a linear series of sealed chambers, each one containing an egg atop a ball of pollen. Over the next few weeks each egg will consume the pollen ball and grow into a worm-like thing (a "larva"), then eventually an adult bee  by late summer. Growth then halts --bees hibernate-- until the following spring. When temperatures heat up again, bees are ready to go! They emerge by chewing their way out of the sticks, usually in sequence (front --> back). Amazing!

Check out the progress of 2 weeks:

Why they prefer the used reeds (on the outside of the box)... I can't explain.

Berry blooms

I have an interest in food plants. If we can produce more food in urban areas, sustainably, AND provide food for wild bees, we are really getting somewhere.

So I've been keeping my eye on berry plants this year: strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries.  These plants do attract bees with their nectar (and pollen) rewards, and generally require pollinators to make great fruit.

One goal of the mason bee study is to see if introduced mason bees visit berry plants in people's backyards. If they don't, which wild bees do?

Strawberries have been flowering for some time. I don't see many bees on strawberry flowers in people's yards, though. Why is that? My theory is the blooms are just not visible enough in these small patches.. The little white flowers are scattered here and there, hidden among the leaves. Bees are more likely to find showier displays.  Or maybe a field of strawberries.

Raspberries and blackberries are in the same genus, Rubus, which includes many other berry plants. The raspberries in Salt Lake have just started flowering. I observed a patch the other day, but I only saw one bee. Our familiar friend that makes honey. Better luck next time...

Bright orange pollen

I have seen many Osmia females bringing this bright orange pollen back to their nests.

It is very conspicuous....

These bees do tend to specialize on composite flowers for pollen (aka Asteraceae family) so I'm narrowing it down...

Arrowleaf balsamroot?? But that's all the way in the foothills... I'm seeing this pollen brought back to boxes the middle of town. 

Dandelion?? Hmmm... let's hope not. Bad for business ;)   

Any ideas?