Bee Watching

How about a gorgeous slide show of New York City bees to get your wintry mind rolling in a summerly direction?

The Body of Bumblebee Knowledge

For the past couple of years, I've had a little wooden birdhouse hanging from a sumac branch at the edge of our bee yard. Wrens selected it for their residence in both years, and made a cheerful presence in the yard with their ceaseless chatter (such tiny birds; such assertive personalities!).

Back in April, I noticed that the birdhouse had been knocked to the ground, presumably by the wind. When I picked it up, I saw that the mice had been at it, stuffing the birdhouse with milkweed silk and other soft nesting material for a cozy winter and/or breeding retreat.

As I began to gently pry the stuffing out with a stick to ready it for the next generation of wrens, I heard a distinctive buzz resonating from deep within—clear warning—and realized that a bumblebee had taken up residence in the box. I put the birdhouse back on the ground and left nature to take its course (and the wrens to find another nesting spot). But it made me think about the fascinating reproductive life of bumblebees, with their honey pots and underground palaces. It also made me think about all the trouble native bumblebees, like so many of our winged, finned, furred, and photosynthetic brethren, are in.

So I was excited to learn about a new Bumblebee Nest Survey aimed at gathering information on the nesting habits and conservation needs of these wonderful and varied creatures.
According to the survey description:

A bumble bee nest might be located anywhere- one of the reasons for this survey is to find out where they like to nest! It could be under a log, in the ground, in a tree, in the side of a building, or in an old mouse burrow. You'll know you've found a nest if you see bumble bees flying into and out of the same hole repeatedly and if you hear a humming sound near the hole. Bumble bees are gentle and ignore people unless grabbed or their nest threatened, so you're not likely to get stung unless you block the entrance or if you disturb the nest itself.

The instructions for making observations are as follows:

When you're near the nest, move slowly and walk softly so you don't alarm [the bees] and you're very unlikely to be stung. You will likely not be able to see the nest, as it will probably be concealed by something like leaves or grass. Don't try to uncover the nest if you can't see it. You don't need to see the nest itself to contribute invaluable information for this research- just be as descriptive of the location as possible.

If, in your travels or birdhouse-cleaning efforts, you come upon a bumblebee nest, why not add to the body of bumblebee knowledge by participating in the Bumblebee Nest Survey?

More Lovely Bee Photos

Take a stroll over to The Kittalog blog and meet a beautiful black-and-white bee and a humble bumble bee.

Learn more about black-and-white bees here.

Learn a thing or two about bumble bees here.

View an impressive array of bees here.

Bees (and Wannabees) of New Zealand

Our friend Eva recently returned from an amazing trip to New Zealand. Along with penguins, sheep, flowers, mountainsides, starfish, and Roberta Flack (!!), Eva encountered some lovely bees and bee-imitators (a.k.a. "wannabees"). With her permission, we're sharing some of her images here. Can you tell the real bees from the bee mimics?

at Clifton Wool 'n' Things - 1 (c)2009, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Glenfalloch Woodland Garden - 23 (c)2009, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Glenfalloch Woodland Garden - 22 (c)2009, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Bee at work (c)2009, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Busy (c)2009, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

A Haiku

Doing a bit of desperately needed office-cleanup today and found this little haiku offering, which I wrote last May:

Sunset Park subway:
A bumblebee checks me out
We see eye to eye

Joe-Pye Weed

"The summer is nearly over when the tall, conspicuous Joe-Pye-weeds begin to tinge with 'crushed raspberry' the lowlands through which we pass."--How to Know the Wild Flowers by Mrs. William Starr Dana

According to the same book, first published by Scribner in 1893, Joe Pye was an American Indian who cured typhus fever in New England using this plant.
This bee, above, made me think of Atlas with a pink world on her shoulders.

I believe the bee in the pics above is the red-tailed bumblebee. Not sure what kind of bumblebee is pictured below, but I welcome help with IDing it.

Recent Things

Tiny bee on a shallot blossom.

Bumblebee on knapweed.

Ghost in the woods.

Frog in puddle after heavy rain.

Bumblebee on burdock blossom.

Moth on lily.

A view.

A fabulous worm.

Pumpkin overrunning a lazy gardener's watering can.

Bumblebee on bee balm, a native mint.

Recent Things

Cocoon.

Dragonfly.

Snail among milkweed.

Dog toy #1 (the joy of found objects)

Dog toy #2 (the joy of found objects)

Bumble bee, old fence, vetch.

Honeybee working linden blossoms.

Juvenile bluebird.

Shallot scapes.

Batty moth.

The Humble Bumblebee

Check out Humming Praises for the Wild Bee, Anne Raver's lovely appreciation of native bees—particularly bumblebees.

The article appears in The New York Times—which, by the way, has been delivering an abundance of bee-related content of late.

Recent info on native bees posted on this blog can be found here and here.

Befriending Native Bees

This is a follow-up on my recent post, Urban Bees & How to Help Them. Herewith are additional resources about native bees, bee-friendly gardening, and environmental practices that promote biodiversity.

Alternative Pollinators: Native Bees is a publication of the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service (ATTRA). The article provides a nice overview of native bee species, tips on how to encourage bees to prosper in your area, a list of forage plants favored by native bees, info on constructing bee nests like those shown below, and tons of additional resources.The rich list of links on the Alternative Pollinators webpage will lead you in a thousand worthwhile directions, from info on bumblebee ID to an article on butterfly intelligence as compared to that of bees. There's also a halfway decent list of international resources on this site. Vertebrae and non-vertebrae pollinators are included.

I fell madly in love with this Bumblebee ID card. Alas, the species of native bumblebee included are limited to those in and around Utah. But what a wonderful infographic! I hope this will be emulated by biologists in other places who want to make it easier for the mere mortals among us to identify our local bumblebees. I spent time trying to do this in upstate New York last summer, and believe me, it wasn't easy—those bees are fast and linger only briefly upon each blossom! It was fun trying to figure out who was who, though.

Last but not least, there's a recent article on bee-friendly gardening called "Creating Buzz" in Audubon Magazine.

Enjoy! And don't forget to thank a bee today.

Bees in Advertising

Vintage. I grew up singing this jingle.



Also vintage. Completely bonkers. Directed by "Chad." Art Carney listed as narrator. Featuring a very wayward honeybee.

Jewelweed

I first came to love jewelweed as a kid at camp. Also known as "touch-me-not," the pods of this lovely, commonplace plant "explode" when touched, posing an irresistible temptation to break the vivid commandment engendered in the plant's name.
Here's a seed and the spring-like mechanism that sends the seeds catapulting far and wide—a most ingenious and dramatic mechanism of seed dispersal.Even now—many years removed from being a kid at camp—I revel in the child-like pleasure of prodding fat jewelweed pods to make them burst.

The honeybees (and bumblebees, and hummingbirds) revel in the jewelweed, too, energetically working its blossoms from July through the end of August. This summer, their labors brought a bumper crop of popping pods disbursing the seeds far and wide.
The bee has to go pretty deep inside the fluted flower to reach the nectar spur.
When it does so, it rubs against the the cluster of stamens with white anthers that you can see here. This transfers pollen onto the bee's head and back. Ingeniously, the ovary is located just above the anthers, so as the bee moves from flower to flower to gather nectar, it transfers the pollen from one flower to the ovaries of another.Here's what the bee looks like when it's working the jewelweed. It took me a few weeks to figure this out. At the hives, I'd see bees coming in with these white stripes on their backs. I didn't realize it was pollen—I figured my queen had mated with some odd-looking drones.
Here are some shots of the bees combing the pollen off their heads and backs, and transferring it to their pollen baskets. Note the wonderful variations in the blossoms' color and patterns.
Jewelweed is, by the way, a native plant, possessing some pretty interesting properties, including great-tasting seeds.

Honeybee vs. Bumblebee

There was quite a fracas in front of Green Hive the other day. This bumblebee must have wandered too close to the honey-filled hive. The honeybee hung on to the bumblebee and wouldn't let go. The fuzzy interloper's larger sized didn't deter the honeybee one bit. Based on the honeybee's position in the shot below, I suspect it was stinging, or trying to sting, the bumblebee. When a honeybee stings a mammal, its stinger dislodges in the victim's skin, causing the bee to die. But when a honeybee stings another insect, it can sting multiple times without losing its stinger (and its life)—or so I've read....In any case, the battle was a dramatic one, with much buzzing, struggling, frantic rolling about in the grass, and several failed attempts at escape by the bumblebee.
(Note the bits of yellow pollen on both insects. The bumblebee should have stuck with pollen-gathering, and steered clear of the honey cache.)

Finally, after much tussling, the bumblebee managed to fly off, with honeybee in tow. In the blurry shot below, the bumblebee is flying out of the frame with the intrepid honeybee hanging on upside down for the ride of its life. (You can also see the bumblebee's pollen basket stuffed with yellow pollen. It's impressive that the bee could fly off carrying the weight of both the pollen load and the mad honeybee.)