- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Head to the Bodega Bay in Sonoma County and you'll see little kids building sandcastles on the beaches.
But head to Bodega Head in the spring and summer, and if you're lucky, you'll see female digger bees—bumble bee mimics—creating their own versions of sandcastles. These bees, Anthophora bomboides stanfordiana, build their nests in the sandy cliffs.
Look for the evidence: nest holes and tiny turrets.
If you missed it, be sure to access KQED's Deep Look video on “This Bee Builds Sandcastles at the Beach” by Gabriela Quirós and crew. It's educational, informative and entertaining. The photography is superb.
An excerpt from the Deep Look video: “It might seem peculiar to see bees at the beach. But the bumblebee-mimic digger bee (Anthophora bomboides stanfordiana) makes its home at beaches in Northern California and Oregon. Once they've mated, the females spend the spring digging their nests into sandy cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean.”
“They find a nearby source of water like a stream and slurp water into a pouch in their abdomen called a crop. They can make 80 daily trips back and forth from the stream to a cliff onto which they spray the water to soften it up. This allows them to dig a series of holes into which they lay their eggs.”
This digger bee is sometimes called the “Stanford bumble bee digger,” because the subspecies name, “stanfordiana,” refers to the Stanford University collection from 1904.
What do they mimic? The yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii, native to the West Coast of North America. But unlike the female bumble bees, female digger bees rarely sting and are not defensive.
The late Robbin Thorp (1933-2019), distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis studied these bees. Current researchers include community ecologist Rachel Vannette, associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Thorp frequently pointed out that when most people think of bees, they think of honey bees. But there's a great diversity in bees, as he wrote in a paper, “Biodiversity and Pollination Biology of Bees in Coastal Nature Preserves,” that he and colleague Thomas Gordon presented at the Proceedings of the Symposium on Biodiversity of Northwestern California, held Oct. 28-30, 1991 in Santa Rosa. “The world bee fauna of bees (superfamily Apoidea) is estimated at 20,000 species,” they wrote. “Of these, about 10% are social, 75% are solitary, and 15 % are cuckoo parasites of other bees (Bohart, 1970).
“Bees are most diverse and abundant in arid warm temperate areas of the world, especially in the Mediterranean, California, and adjacent desert areas (Michener 1979),” they wrote. “With rare exceptions, bees rely on nectar and pollen as food resources: nectar primarily as energy for flight and other activities, pollen as nutrients for reproduction (ovarian and brood development). Most bees are generalists when foraging for nectar, restricted primarily by body or tongue size. Many bee species, however, exhibit host-specificity (oligolecty) in relation to pollen resources (Robertson, 1925; Linsley, 1958). Linsley and MacSwain (1958) define oligolecty as the collection of pollen from one or a few closely related plant species by all members of a bee species with use of alternative sources occurring only during stress periods when such pollen sources are locally (or temporarily) absent.”
“Bees are ‘keystone' species in most plant communities because of their importance as pollinators for the reproductive continuity of many flowering plants including rare and endangered species,” they related.
We've seen the digger bees at Bodega Bay foraging on wild radish and lupine in the spring and summer. And building sandcastles the ocean waves can't reach and people generally ignore.
Last week we saw a family checking out the holes in the sandy cliffs. “What are these?” they inquired.
“Digger bees, bumble-bee mimics,” I responded, mentioning the KQED “Deep Look” video.
They said they'd watch it.
We have a feeling they'll be back next year to watch the bees build their sandcastles.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Remember Godzilla?
The 1954 iconic film, Godzilla, featured what Wikipedia calls "an enormous, destructive prehistoric sea monster awakened and empowered by nuclear radiation."
I have a Godzilla.
I have it only because my neighbor served it its eviction notice from her garden and gave it to me--a three-inch long tobacco hornworm doing a Joey Chestnut on her tomato plants.
She knew I wanted one. Actually, the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, was looking for some hornworm frass (droppings) and had none.
I have plenty now.
If the stars align and Godzilla (Manduca sexta), continues to feel awakened, enlightened and empowered in my little habitat, she will become a Carolina sphinx moth, also known as a hawk moth or a tobacco hawkmoth.
See what an eviction notice can do?
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Ever seen a green metallic sweat bee?
The colors are exquisite.
This is a female Agapostemon on a purple coneflower at UC Davis. They are called "sweat bees" because they are attracted to human perspiration.
The genders are easy to distinguish. The males have a striped abdomen.
Green sweat bees are among the bees featured in the book, "California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists," co-authored by the University of California team of Gordon Frankie, UC Berkeley; Robbin Thorp (1933-2019) UC Davis; and UC Berkeley affiliates Rollin Coville (photographer and entomologist) and Barbara Ertter (plant specialist). Frankie, Thorp, Coville and Ertter (and others) also published "Native Bees Are a Rich Natural Resource in Urban California Gardens" in California Agriculture.
Oh, those bee-utiful bees. They are not only conspicuous, but charming and often camera-cooperative.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It would never happen in real life.
A quail and a praying mantis together?
Except when one is a decorative metal sculpture.
A mantis, a carnivore, is known to eat hummingbirds (in addition to its regular diet of bees and butterflies, et al). And a quail, an omnivore, eats both plants and insects.
"Arthropods (e.g., insects and spiders) are a vital food source for quail in summer and fall, according to Texas A&M's Natural Resources Institute. "They serve as a 'meal ready to eat' (MRE), as they are a crucial source of energy, protein and water for laying hens and growing chicks in particular."
In the real world, a praying mantis and a quail are not a twosome.
In art world, yes. This praying mantis climbed to the top of a decorative garden sculpture, looked around, groomed herself, and jumped on another decorative garden sculpture.
If you look closely at one of the images below, though, it appears that the quail and the mantis are one.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Is Franklin's bumble bee extinct or is it just elusive?
Annual search parties conducted since 2006 have failed to locate the species.
Now scientists may learn its status via DNA "fingerprints."
A recent article in the National Geographic indicated: "For the past several years, the wildlife service (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) and the U.S. Geological Survey have been developing a DNA fingerprint for Franklin's bumblebee. Once it's complete, scientists will be able to test flower samples for the bee's genetic material—they wouldn't need to see the bee to determine it's still alive and has recently visited a particular area."
Fascinating news, and news that the late Robbin Thorp (1933-2019), distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis and a global expert on bumble bees, would have treasured.
Franklin's bumble bee, Bombus franklini, 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. It's now on the list of federally endangered species, and Thorp (partnering with the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation), helped put it there.
Thorp, a member of the UC Davis entomology faculty for 30 years (1964-1994) and co-author of the landmark Bumble Bees of North America: an Identification Guide, closely monitored the population for more than two decades. His surveys clearly showed the declining population. His sightings decreased from 94 in 1998 to 20 in 1999 to 9 in 2000 to one in 2001. Sightings increased slightly to 20 in 2002, but dropped to three in 2003. He saw none in 2004 and 2005; one in 2006; and none since.
We chronicled his many trips to the five-county area to search for the elusive bumble bee, and his never-fading optimism.
Thorp's determined hunt resulted in the CNN publication of "The Old Man and the Bee," a spin-off of Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea."
We remember his excitement every time folks telephoned or messaged him that "I think I found it!" (Here's what it looks like.)
"Don't give me a heart attack," he'd reply.
Named in 1921 for Henry J. Franklin (who monographed the bumble bees of North and South America in 1912-13), Franklin's bumble bee frequented California poppies, lupines, vetch, wild roses, blackberries, clover, sweet peas, horsemint and mountain penny royal during its flight season, from mid-May through September. The bumble bee "collects pollen, primarily from lupines and poppies, and gathers nectar mainly from mints," Thorp told us.
Fast forward to today. Is the species extinct, as many scientists think?
"Even after 15 years, it's not unrealistic to think Franklin's bumblebee will be found," Matt Kelly wrote in National Geographic. "There are notable examples of researchers rediscovering bees and other insects after they've been presumed to be extinct: The blue calamintha bee was found after nine years without a sighting in Florida; Fender's blue butterfly was found after 52 years in Oregon; and Wallace's giant bee, the world's largest, was rediscovered after 122 years in Indonesia. Of the more than 350 species rediscovered since 1889, the average time between the last sighting and rediscovery is 61 years, a 2011 study found."
The DNA fingerprints may reveal what Thorp has always thought: "It's out there somewhere."
