Bees, butterflies, beetles, birds and bats.

What do they have in common? Skipping the alliteration for a moment, they're all pollinators.

Honey bees grab the most attention, of course, and they do the bulk of the work. But so do bumble bees and other native bees.

But other pollinators include moths, hummingbirds, wasps and flies (especially the syrphid flies, aka hover flies or flower flies often mistaken for honey bees by the untrained eye.)

The National Park Service describes pollination as "anything that helps carry pollen from the male part of the flower (stamen) to the female part of the same or another flower (stigma). The movement of pollen must occur for the plant to become fertilized and produce fruits, seeds, and young plants. Some plants are self-pollinating, while others may be fertilized by pollen carried by wind or water. Still, other flowers are pollinated by insects and animals - such as bees, wasps, moths, butterflies, birds, flies and small mammals, including bats."

"At least 75 percent of all the flowering plants on earth are pollinated by insects and animals," they point out on their website. "This amounts to more than 1,200 food crops and 180,000 different types of plants—plants which help stabilize our soils, clean our air, supply oxygen, and support wildlife."

One pollinator that absolutely takes our breath away is the Western tiger swallowtail, Papilio rutulus, especially when it touches down on the colorful Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola, and begins to nectar.

If you're lucky, you'll see different species sharing the same blossom. 

Hello there, little leafcutter bee! Yes, you, foraging on the sky-blue Chinese Forget-Me-Nots!

You're just in time for National Pollinator Week!

Leafcutter bees, family Megachilidae, are so named because the females cut leaves and petals  (perfectly round holes!) to line their nests. Smaller than honey bees--and much faster, leafcutter bees are easily recognizable by the black-white bands on their abdomen.

The females do all the work. They gather pollen and nectar, make the nests from the leaf and petal fragments, and lay eggs. They seal the egg chambers with the leaves or flower petals.

In our pollinator garden, leafcutter bees are quite fond of Chinese Forget-Me-Nots, Cynoglossum amabile. "Many wild bees prefer flowers in the violet-blue range—in part because these blossoms tend to produce high volumes of nectar," according to an Oct. 18, 2017 article in Science.org. 

Of the 4000 bee species known in the United States, about 1600 reside in California. The leafcutter bee is just one of them. The family, Megachilidae,  includes these leafcutting bees:Megachile angelarum, M. fidelis and M. montivaga; the alfalfa leafcutting bee, M. rotundata; the Mason bee, Osmia coloradensis; and the blue orchard bee (BOB), Osmia lignaria propinqua.

For more information on California's bees, read California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday), the work of UC-affiliated scientists, Gordon Frankie,  Robbin Thorp (1933-2019), Barbara Ertter and Rollin Coville.  

Thorp, a global and legendary authority on bees and a distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis, died June 7, 2019 at his home in Davis. He was 85.

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

1. Sip nectar
2. Seek girlfriend
3. Guard the flower patch by dive-bombing and chasing off all critters.
4. 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! 

It's Day 6 of National Pollinator Week.

Meet the drone fly (Eristalis tenax), often mistaken for a honey bee.

The late Robbin Thorp, UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor of entomology, used to jokingly call it "The H Bee," pointing to the "H on its abdomen.

It's not a bee, though, it's a fly. It belongs to the family Syrphidae (which includes insects commonly known as syrphids, flower flies, and hover flies) in the order, Diptera.

The drone fly about the size of a honey bee. However, unlike a honey bee, the drone fly "hovers" over a flower before landing.

Drone fly larvae are known as rattailed maggots. They feed off bacteria in drainage ditches, manure or cess pools, sewers and the like.

But just think of the adult. It's a pollinator. Just like the honey bee.