- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
On Oct. 17?
But there he was, the familiar golden bee with green eyes, robbing nectar from a Mexican petunia, Ruellia simplex, in a Vacaville, Calif., garden.
"Nectar robbing" occurs when a bee bypasses the pollination process and "cheats" by entering a flower from the outside to steal the nectar. This one proved to be a good robber, as he buzzed from blossom to blossom to drill holes in the corolla and sip the nectar.
This is the bee that the late Robbin Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, called "the teddy bear bee." It looks fluffy and cuddly and it doesn't sting. Or as Thorp used to say, "Boy bees don't sting." Often he would show a newly collected male Valley carpenter bee to youngsters at a Bohart Museum of Entomology open house (in the spring) and encourage them to hold him. You could see the utter delight on their faces.
Valley carpenter bees are a perfect example of sexual dimorphism. The females are solid black and the males are golden with green eyes. (See more information about wild bees in the book California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists by University of California-affiliated authors Gordon Frankie, Robbin Thorp, Rollin Coville, and Barbara Ertter.)
As Thorp told us several years ago for a news story: This Valley carpenter bee (formerly known as as Xylocopa varipuncta) "occurs in the Central Valley and southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and southward through Mexico. It is large (about the size of a queen bumble bee), with all black females and golden/buff-colored males with green eyes. Females have dark wings with violet reflections."?
Some folks think it's a pest. It's not. It's a pollinator.
And if you spot a male in October, just call it "Mr. October." Baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson probably wouldn't mind.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Honey bees absolutely love African blue basil. If there ever were a "bee magnet," this plant is it.
We first learned of African blue basil, (Ocimum kilimandscharicum × basilicum 'Dark Opal'), through Gordon Frankie, UC Berkeley professor and the late Robbin Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis. They co-authored the book, California Bees and Blooms: a Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists with Rollin Coville and Barbara Ertter, also affiliated with UC Berkeley.
We plant it every year in our pollinator garden. Wikipedia calls African blue basil "a cross between camphor basil and dark opal basil. "African blue basil plants are sterile, unable to produce seeds of their own, and can only be propagated by cuttings.
"All parts of the flower, leaves and stems are edible; although some might find the camphor scent too strong for use in the kitchen, the herb reportedly yields a tasty pesto with a 'rich, mellow flavor' and can be used as a seasoning in soups and salads, particularly those featuring tomato, green beans, chicken, etc.," Wikipedia tells us. "The leaves of African blue basil start out purple when young, only growing green as the given leaf grows to its full size, and even then retaining purple veins. Based on other purple basils, the color is from anthocyanins, especially cyanidin-3-(di-p-coumarylglucoside)-5-glucoside, but also other cyanidin-based and peonidin-based compounds."
A final note that Wikipedia relates: It "blooms profusely like an annual, but being sterile can never go to seed. It is also taller than many basil cultivars. These blooms are very good at attracting bees and other pollinators."
Right. "These blooms are very good at attracting bees and other pollinators."
Wikipedia forgot to mention that blooms are "very good at attracting predators," like praying mantids. They go where the bees are, and the bees are in the African blue basil.
Can you find the mantis in the image below?
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The good news? That the iconic monarch landed on the Red List, which means opening safeguards to protect it.
The bad news? Being on the list means that it's closer to extinction. The other bad news? The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has not yet listed it as endangered or threatened, only that it's a candidate for its list of endangered and threatened wildlife.
The sad news? The IUCN Red List now includes 147,517 species, of which 41,459 are threatened with extinction.
IUCN, the global network conservation authority based in Switzerland, is comprised of more than 1,400 member organizations, with input from some 15,000 experts.
Percentages punctuate the story of the declining monarch population. "The western population is at greatest risk of extinction, having declined by an estimated 99.9%, from as many as 10 million to 1,914 butterflies between the 1980s and 2021," according to the IUCN news release. "The larger eastern population also shrunk by 84% from 1996 to 2014. Concern remains as to whether enough butterflies survive to maintain the populations and prevent extinction."
IUCN fittingly called attention to climate change, pointing out that "climate change has significantly impacted the migratory monarch butterfly and is a fast-growing threat; drought limits the growth of milkweed and increases the frequency of catastrophic wildfires, temperature extremes trigger earlier migrations before milkweed is available, while severe weather has killed millions of butterflies."
So here we are, our favorite butterfly "teetering on the edge of collapse," as IUCN monarch butterfly assessment leader Anna Walker so accurately put it. Yet, Walker, a member of the IUCN Species Survival Commission's Butterfly and Moth Specialist Group and Species Survival Officer at the New Mexico BioPark Society, sees signs of hope, as people and organizations come together to try to protect the monarch and its habitats.
So much to do...
Meanwhile, have you seen any monarchs lately?
You can participate in the sixth annual International Monarch Monitoring Blitz, set from July 29 to Aug. 7. You're invited to look for milkweed plants and report their observations of monarchs (eggs. caterpillars, chrysalids and adults) to Journey North:
- Learn how to participate: view and download our instructional flyer»
- Read the press release»
- Learn more about the Monarch Blitz»
Over the last several years, we've seen dozens of monarchs in our family's pollinator garden in Vacaville. In 2020, we observed some 300 eggs and caterpillars. So far this year: Zero, zip, nada.
Let's hope that the monarch doesn't go the way of Franklin's bumble bee, the bee that Robbin Thorp (1933-2019), a UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor of entomology, monitored for decades in its small range of southern Oregon and northern California. He was instrumental in placing the bumble bee, Bombus franklini. on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2008. He also worked to place it on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Endangered Species List, which occurred in 2021.
Thorp, the last known person to see Franklin's bumble bee in its native habitat, spotted it in 2006 near Mt. Ashland. The bee inhabits--or did--a 13,300-square-mile area confined to five counties--Siskiyou and Trinity counties in California; and Jackson, Douglas and Josephine counties in Oregon. Every year biologists, citizen scientists, volunteers, landowners and students form a search party to look for it. This year more than 70 people participated. Sadly, it's feared extinct.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
A female Melissodes agilis, the so-called "agile longhorned bee," is foraging on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola.
Longhorned? So named because they have unusually long antennae. Think of this species as the insect version of Texas longhorns!
Melissodes are ground-nesting solitary bees. While the males congregate on a flower to sleep overnight, each female is returns to her ground nest.
This female (below) rose early on July 3 to sip a little nectar while the males were fast asleep.
We find this species every year on our Mexican sunflowers, Tithonia rotundifola, in our family's Vacaville pollinator garden. It's native to North America and Central America.
They're a delight to see. The males are quite territorial as they target assorted critters on "their" flowers. As the late pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor of entomology, used to say: "They're saving the flowers for the females of their species, so they can mate with them."
But if you're a "gal bee" and awaken early, you have the flowers all to yourself.
Thorp used to tell us there are some 20,000 undomesticated bee species are there in the world. Some 4000 species llve in the United States. And some 1600 species, including Melissodes agilis, live in California.
Internationally recognized for his expertise, Thorp co-authored two books in 2014: the UC California book, California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday) and Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton University Press).
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Hey, the sun's up! It's time to rise and shine! Maybe I'll shine before I rise...or maybe I'll...
Anyway, I just woke up, and I'm starting to stir. I'm ready to conquer the day. I shall
- Sip nectar
- Seek girlfriend
- Guard the flower patch by dive-bombing and chasing off all critters.
- Repeat.
The scenario: a male longhorned bee, Melissodes agilis, has just spent the night sleeping--and quite cozily at that--on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola.
He is Boy Bee With the Green Mesmerizing Eyes.
Boy Bee With the Green Mesmerizing Eyes does not know--nor would he care if he could--that today is the beginning of National Pollinator Week, an international annual event celebrating pollinator health.
According to the Pollinator Partnership, "pollination is a vital stage in the life cycle of all flowering plants. When pollen is moved within a flower or carried from one flower to another of the same species it leads to fertilization. This transfer of pollen is necessary for healthy and productive native and agricultural ecosystems." It's crucial to our ecosystem.
As the Pollinator Partnership says on its website:
- "About 75 percent of all flowering plant species need the help of animals to move their heavy pollen grains from plant to plant for fertilization."
- "About 1,000 of all pollinators are vertebrates such as birds, bats, and small mammals."
- "Most pollinators (about 200,000 species) are beneficial insects such as flies, beetles, wasps, ants, butterflies, moths, and bees."
But back to Boy Bee With the Mesmerizing Green Eyes.
Noted bee expert, the late Robbin Thorp, a UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor of entomology and co-author of California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday), used to talk about these little guys bullying all the floral tenants--from honey bees to syrphid flies to butterflies to lady beetles--and more.
Boy, do they move fast. A good time to photograph them is when they're sleeping or just waking up. Otherwise, try to capture images of them at a shutter speed of about 1/5000 of a second.
Happy Beginning of National Pollinator Week!