- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The drone fly, aka European hover fly, aka syrphid fly, doesn't get as much press as the other drone, the unmanned aircraft.
But the drone fly (Eristalis tenax), about the size of a honey bee and often mistaken for a honey bee, makes for great in-flight photos. It's sort of the Fat Albert of the Blue Angels.
Last weekend we watched a drone fly (distinguished by the "H" on its abdomen), hovering over an Iceland poppy (Papaver nudicaule). The rain-battered poppy certainly wouldn't have won any gold awards in a county fair's garden show.
But to the drone fly, bent on foraging, this was gold. It emerged with "gold dust" (pollen) on its head.
Yes, its larva are known as rat-tailed maggots and yes, they frequent manure piles, sewage drainage ditches and other water-polluted areas.
But the adults are pollinators. Significant pollinators, at that.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
'Cept when it's a fly.
Lately we've been seeing lots of images on social media (including Facebook and Twitter), news media websites, and stock photo sites of "honey bees."
But they're actually flies.
Will the real flies come forth?
Today we saw several drone flies, Eristalis tenax, sipping nectar from our Mexican sunflower (Tithonia). Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, jokingly calls this drone fly "the H bee." Why? There's an "H" pattern on its abdomen.
The drone fly and honey bee are similar in size and both are floral visitors in their adult stages. However, the drone fly is quite distinguishable from a honey bee. The fly has large eyes, stubby antennae and one pair of wings.
The larvae of the drone fly is a rat-tailed maggot that lives in drainage ditches, pooled manure piles and other polluted water.
Unlike a honey bee, the drone fly "hovers" over a flower before landing. The fly belongs to the family Syrphidae (which includes insects commonly known as flower flies, hover flies and syrphids) and the order, Diptera. The honey bee is Apis mellifera, family Apidae, order Hymenoptera.
The case of mistaken identity can cause excruciating pain. A journalist will spend half a day interviewing bee experts about bee health--investigating colony collapse disorder, malnutrition and Varroa mites--only to have a copy editor illustrate the prized bee story with a fly. It's more horrific than Halloween.
Likewise, Facebook editors have been known to turn a fly into a bee faster than the beat of a wing. And photographers who know more about "F" stops than "H bees" post misindentified photos on Flickr or sell their mislabeled images to stock photo businesses.
The old saying, "If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it's probably a duck" doesn't ring true in "the drone bee vs. the honey bee" identity crisis.
If it looks like a bee, acts like a bee and buzzes like a bee, it may be...a drone fly.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Poet Gertrude Stein, who coined "A rose is a rose is a rose," probably would have liked it.
Julia Child, maybe not.
We purchased a "Sparkle and Shine" yellow rose, related to the Julia Child Rose, last May at the rose sale sponsored by the California Center for Urban Horticulture, University of California, Davis. It's drawing quite a bit of attention from insects in our yard.
And not just from honey bees, earwigs and spottted cucumber beetles.
From flies.
We recently spotted this drone fly (Eristalis tenax) foraging among the blossoms. Startled by the camera movement, it kept flying off, only to return within seconds.
At first glance, non-entomologists would probably identify it as a honey bee. It's a floral visitor, right?
Right. But not all floral visitors are flies, and not all pollination involves bees.
Wikipedia says that in its natural habitat, the drone fly "is more of a curiosity than a problem, and the adults are benficial pollinators."
It's the larva, the red-tailed maggot, that makes some people shudder. The larvae, as Wikipedia says, live "in drainage ditches, pools around manure piles, sewage, and similar places containing water badly polluted with organic matter."
So from a pool around a manure pile to a beautiful Sparkle and Shine yellow rose. Who would have thought?
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
"If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it's probably a duck," or so the saying goes.
But if it looks like a honey bee, moves around on blossoms like a honey bee, and feeds on nectar and pollen like a honey bee, it may not be a honey bee.
It could be a flower fly or syrphid in the Syrphidae family.
The syrphids suffer from multiple cases of mistaken identity.
One of the syprhids commonly mistaken for a honey bee (Apis mellifera) is the drone fly (Eristalis tenax).
An imposter!
We spotted a drone fly--the first we've seen this year--on Feb. 5 in Tomales, Marin County. It was nectaring a pincushion flower (Seabiosa columbaria) at the Mostly Natives Nursery.
"There's a bee!" someone exclaimed.
It wasn't. It was a drone fly.
In its larval stage, it's known as a rat-tailed maggot. You'll see it in stagnant water, such as in ditches, ponds and drains. It feeds on stagnant rotting organic material.
In its adult stage, it moves from flower to flower, sipping nectar and pollinating flowers. Watch it hover and you know it's not a honey bee. Look at its two wings, and you know it's not a honey bee (the honey bee has four).
Lots of other differences, too.
It's a good pollinator, but a honey bee, it is not.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Remember the 1998 U.S. vice presidential debate when Sen. Lloyd Bentsen told Sen Dan Quayle: "I knew Jack Kennedy, and you're no Jack Kennedy!"
Well, in the insect world, there's a fly that looks a lot like a honey bee, but it's no honey bee.
It's a drone fly (Eristallis tenax) from the family Syrphidae. It resembles a drone (male) honey bee.
UC Davis entomologist and emeritus professor Robbin Thorp of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, who does research on native pollinators, identified the drone fly below as a female.
The drone fly is brownish black with light yellow triangles at the base of the abdomen.
"It's sometimes called the 'H fly' for the pattern on the front of the abdomen," Thorp said.
So, what's the resemblance between a drone fly and a drone honey bees? The eyes. And the similar bullet-shaped bodies. "The eyes look quite a bit alike," agreed UC Davis apiculturist Eric Mussen.
However, the honey bee has four wings, and the drone fly, two. "But sometimes," Mussen said, "you don't notice the drone honey bee's other pair of wings."
There's no mistaking the larvae, though. They drone fly larvae are aquatic. They live in drainage ditches, sewage, and stagnant ponds or sluggish streams. Each little sausage-shaped larva has a long breathing tube which it extends to the surface for oxygen. It's known as a "rat-tailed maggot."
Did anybody say "Yecch?" Yecch!
Sometimes you'll see the rat-tailed maggots moving around in fresh cattle dung or, shall we say, moist excrement.
Did anybody say "Yecch?" Yecch!
When it's an adult, it visits flowers, like this drone fly did in the Storer Gardens during the recent UC Davis Arboretum Plant Faire.
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