If you visit the Jepson Prairie Reserve near Vacaville-Dixon in Solano County, keep your eyes out for Andrena (mining) bees on the meadowfoam (Limnanthes).
We were out there Monday morning and saw a mining bee nestled inside a white flower cup. The bee, about the size of a grain of rice, wasn't moving.
Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, and a noted expert on "Vernal Pool Flowers and their Specialist Pollinators," identified the bee below as a male Andrena (mining bee) and "most certainly Andrena pulvera, the species whose females specialize on Limnanthes as their pollen source."
The males have no burrows. "They spend the night inside the meadowfoam flower cups so they are frequently encountered as 'sleeping' inside them early in the morning. As soon as the sun warms them up, they go about their business searching for meadowfoam patches for females."
A short distance away, we spotted another Andrena doing the same thing.
Life is good.
Attached Images:
Andrena bee on meadowfoam. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Andrena bee cradled inside a meadowfoam at the Jepson Prairie Reserve. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)