All bees "hibernate" in the winter. Most bees hibernate as a larva or pupa, before they actually emerge as flying adult bees in the spring or summer.
Mason bees are solitary, and females will make their nests inside many different types of cavities, like those pictured below. The nest plugs (green, reddish, or leaf cutouts) were made by the female solitary bee to seal the nest. Inside, the bees sleep, and wait...
Small version of an *actual* sunflower farm/field but the effect is the same.... happy happy sunshine and BEES galore!!!
This 'field' was in an unexpected place - just a large suburban commercial corner lot - a massive wildflower meadow spans both sides. Quite an impressive display.
Agapostemon (green sweat bees) nest in the ground. They live in small social groups.
Ground nests often have several entrance holes; each must be guarded. This is a "job" for certain bees. Check out the two guard bees standing sentry. I consider myself very lucky they tolerated my presence here. Enjoy!
Aren't they beautiful?
This particular nest has two main entrances, pictured above. There is also a back door:
Thanks to the horticulture team at Red Butte Garden for this wonderful discovery!
Truly captivating...
Leafcutter bees line their nest cells with leaf circles, which they cut themselves. Watching them cut the circles is pretty great.
And don't miss the stunning beauty of their completed work.
Do you know a "BEE BACKYARD" when you see it?
If not, here's one.
Note all the bare patches of dirt: bee nesting habitat, of course.
And there are plenty of ground-nesting bees here.
They are my good friends at this point.... I come to this yard frequently to survey for bees.
(Last year I caught 34 species here!!)
I have a few things to say about meadows.
First, bees and meadows are inseparable.
LOTS of bee species evolved and proliferated in some kind of meadow habitat - grassland, prairie, savannah... all sunny places with flowers. = Good for bees. Besides the desert, wildflower meadows are the best places to see bees. Unfortunately there aren't many natural meadows to see.
So... make one!?
If you want a low maintenance, ecologically beneficial landscape, meadows are for you. Creating a meadow is not for the faint of heart, though. This low-maintenance landscape actually requires a boatload of work up front, to eradicate weeds and get the desirable species established. Years of work, in fact. But hey.
This only makes residential and "restored" meadows all the more exciting to see.
Red Butte Garden has undertaken a meadow restoration project along Red Butte Creek. Now on its seventh year:
Hundreds of volunteer hours have gone into this meadow's establishment. The meadow is now dominated by native grasses and wildflowers and provides habitat for wildlife, INCLUDING BEES!
Bee nests can now be seen within the meadow and in the dirt paths surrounding it:
If you plant it THEY WILL COME. You can count on it.
First accomplishment of the year - a local bee guide!
Developed with funds from Slow Food Utah!
This is 12-page pamphlet that fits in your pocket. It covers 15 types of bees most common in northern Utah backyards.
Bees take some time to figure out. May as well get started!
THIS GUIDE IS FREE.
I will be distributing the printed pamphlets where and when I can.
My first "stop" will at the Honeybee Festival hosted by Slow Food Utah, JUNE 4TH, at the Sorenson Utility Center, 1383 South 900 West.
Stop by for a free local bee guide!!
Carpenter bees being weird.
I had carpenter bees overwinter in in my garage. (Inside an empty bee condo - the same one carpenter bees seemed to use for squatting in (?) last June..) This is normal behavior because females for the next generation are laid late in the year and they have to overwinter as adults. Kind of like bears hibernating. Most bees "overwinter" as larvae/pupae and aren't actually aware of the process.
This spring, when I brought their hiding place outside, I expected them to fly away. But they didn't... they stayed burrowed inside empty sticks, even after it turned warm. In a few weeks a male joined them - he hung around much longer than would be expected for a 'quick' visit.
The male is still there. And at least one female makes trips during the day - coming back and forth to the same stick, but without pollen..... I don't get it.
Carpenter bees (these are Xylocopa tabaniformis) drill fresh holes in wood for their nests. They aren't known to live in hollow sticks or cavities, but whatever.. bees have confused me before.
Males and females of X. tabaniformis look different. Females are 100% black, shiny metallic. The males, as pictured below, have blue/grey eyes and a furry thorax. They make great pets.
I'm just noticing... mason and leafcutter bee nests inside crevices all over my exterior brick wall.
The first nest plug pictured is the one that caught my eye... it must be from this year since it is so green.
I noticed the rest after I started looking.
These are definitely safe from the big bad wolf. Very secure!
Here they come!
Mason bees (Osmia nigrifrons) are emerging from hibernation.
Pictured atop their nest conglomeration, made of mud.
Male bees usually come out first. (This is a male).
Female bees come out a little later, because they are bigger and take longer to develop. This way, males are ready to mate with females immediately when they emerge. Females then waste no time getting down to nest building and laying eggs.
This mud nest chunk is a piece of a larger conglomeration I sampled from Red Butte Garden. The larger conglomeration is situated inside a bird box, where it has been for several years, co-existing with screech owls.
Most Osmia species we see in Salt Lake are metallic all over, either dark blue/black or brighter shades of blue or green. These Osmia are a little different. Looking forward to seeing a female emerge - I don't remember what they look like!
Thanks to everyone for visiting the Wild Bee Project.
It's been 2016 for a while now, but the bees are just starting.... I am excited for this new season and the new discoveries it will bring!
The Wild Bee Project is evolving into a new area this year: education. Our surveys of wild bees in Salt Lake City will continue. But I am looking forward to talking with more people in our community and developing better tools for teaching people of all ages about wild bees.
Keep coming back to learn more about our educational events, activities, and as always.. ever more about the wild bees of Salt Lake City!
Laura
Many wild bees are easily overlooked. They are very small, very fast, or both.
Here are some close-ups of bees that fly below most people's radar.
(Bee IDs have been edited....)
All bees pictured below are in the genus Lasioglossum, the tiny "sweat bees." Some are only a few millimeters long!
(For scale, above: the white flowers are apache plume; the yellow is curlycup gumweed.)
The nest entrances (perfectly round circles) are tiny. About the size of a bee's head.
These tiny bees are common in urban areas, just rarely noticed.
The most important way to "save the bees" is to plant lots of flowers in your garden.
By lots of flowers, I mean many kinds of flowers, that together, bloom ALL season long. The hardest part is having flowers that bloom into late summer (i.e., now). Most flowering plants by this time are drying up.
So what is blooming RIGHT NOW?
Awesome late bloomers in Utah include sunflowers, coneflowers, asters, mallows, clover, hyssop, bee balm, goldenrod, lavender, cleome, blanket flower, black-eyed susan, and herbs like sage, thyme, mint, and fennel.
And how about this? Artichoke!
So pretty. And bees love it.
FYI, "meat bees" are actually wasps. Yellow jacket wasps.
Bees are vegetarian, and are not aggressive.
Late in the summer we see lots of wasps. When other food sources (nectar and insects) for wasps dry up and decline, wasps come more aggressively to our picnics and BBQs. We generally hate them at these times.
No one likes the meat bees. However, as annoying as they are, wasps are beneficial insects. They eat many garden pests, keeping populations in check, and they pollinate flowers, just like bees.
Here's how to tell them apart.
Image by Alex Surcica
Remember: Bees are hairy. Wasps are not.
Wasps also have a skinny "waist" that separates their body sections. And most of all, they are quite aggressive. If you have a wasp nest, tolerate it if you can and stay away.
More on bee and wasp nests here.
One of the most iconic flowers out there.. sunflowers are SUMMER. Sturdy, tall, open, and beautiful. They catch your eye from a distance, then close up, they are gorgeously intricate.
Sunflowers are GREAT for wild bees!! More than 200 species of native bees visit sunflowers.
Sunflowers are part of one of the biggest and most successful "citizen science" projects in the USA: the Great Sunflower Project. For this project, citizens across the country plant lemon queen sunflowers then watch them for just a few minutes each day, week, or whenever they can... these citizen "scientists" then submit their observations (how many flower visitors they observed) to the Project database online. Its super easy and a great way to help scientists track bees and other pollinators!
Check out a blooming sunflower and you are likely to see at least a few Melissodes bees. Melissodes males have super long antennae and patrol sunflowers for mates. Check them out in the evening sleeping on flower heads!
"Beneficial insects" are familiar to organic gardeners. Although "beneficial" typically means pest control, it also includes pollinators.
But which vegetables really NEED pollinators?
Squashes, for one. And squash bees do the job... Even in small backyard patches!
What about tomatoes and peppers? Some would argue the wind is sufficient (to agitate the flowers). Actually, tomatoes and peppers are much better when animal-pollinated, and specifically "buzzed" by a competent bee. Bumblebees are perfect for this job!
Image copyright 2009, David L. Green
The problem is, bumblebees won't "find" your tomatoes and peppers the same way squash bees find your squash. So how to we attract them?
The best way is to have the right perennial flowers, close to the garden. Plant mints, clover, Salvia, Monarda, or plants in the Asteraceae (sunflower) family! Check out Appendix B of Conserving Bumble Bees by the Xerces Society for a solid list.
If you want to go further, provide nesting habitat for bumblebees. According to Xerces Society, un-mown native bunch grasses, brush piles, and dead trees are best. Basically any place a mouse might find appealing would be attractive to bumblebees, too.
Most experts don't recommend putting out nest boxes for bumble bees in backyards (they rarely work), but I think this bird box idea has promise. I write more about bumble bees here.
For more info and links, check out this great article at Mother Nature Network from last summer.
These are the only photos I have of squash bees nesting. From 1971!
I haven't found any myself, yet.
Squash bees (genus Peponapis) nest in the ground. They are "gregarious," meaning that although they are solitary bees, that build their nests near each other.
According to bee research pioneers who took these photos, squash bees prefer LAWNS for their nesting sites. Weird! Nest holes are usually concentrated in a few areas of a lawn. Frequently in barer patches. But also in 'protected' places like under shrubs, next to a tight clump of grasses, along sidewalks, even under wood planking (see Figure 2). Apparently squash bees don't mind a lot of moisture (from irrigation), either.
I won't rest until I find a nest site in Salt Lake City. Squash bees are everywhere right now... and they are taunting me!
Reference:
Hurd, PD, EG Linsley, and AE Michelbacher. 1974. Ecology of the squash and gourd bee, Peponapis pruinosa, on cultivated cucurbits in California (Hymenoptera: Apoidea). Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, Number 168. Smithsonian Institution Press.
Squash bees are a good thing to have.
If you are lucky enough to have them in your garden, you can bet dollars to doughnuts they will pollinate each and every one of your squash flowers.
AT SUNRISE.
They are VERY early risers. Seriously.
Plus they are photogenic. What a backdrop!
Photos taken at Bell Organic Farm, Draper, UT
If you like to collect squash flowers...be prepared for the challenge of 'evicting' sleeping male bees who occupy them (drowsily) all day...
Here's something we can all hate on.
NOXIOUS WEEDS.
VILE.
An easy target.. perhaps.
But in the western US, noxious weeds in our rangelands and native habitats are a scourge upon the earth. Truly.
Scotch thistle (Onopordum acanthium), for example. Bees love thistles and most native thistles are lovely and should be tolerated wherever possible...
BUT. Scotch thistle should die a fiery death. Here's the difference:
LEFT: Scotch thistle (invasive/noxious) | RIGHT: Cirsium undulatum (native)
Photo taken at Red Butte Garden Natural Area (Salt Lake City).
Thanks Neal!
What is a weed?
Something we hate.
Wouldn't a weed-free world be great? AAAAHHH.............. no more weeds.
Too bad about the bees, though.
The "weed" label is subjective. And with regard to bees, downright awkward.
Not only is "weed" subjective from one person to the next, one place to another, but many plants solidly in the "weed" camp provide reliable food for bees. And have done so for millions of years. Awkward.
Weeds are important to bees, let's face it. They are successful, abundant species in many areas where there might not be anything else to eat at times. At the very least, weeds with abundant pollen and nectar should be tolerated in our backyards wherever we can stand them.
I know, it's not easy sometimes.
Do you tolerate clover or dandelion in your lawn...? Baby steps.
Two books I've picked up since I started paying attention to 'weeds'..... One is the choice of professionals, the other of my late grandmother.
'Wildflowers and Weeds' is particularly good if you live in the upper Midwest or Ontario. But I also find it useful in the west. Gotta include Granny's dedication..
