The Pollinators
Native Bees and Wasps in the gardens of Flower Hill Farm 2014
Here is a collection of native bees and wasps I sighted in the gardens last year. Bees and wasps keep busy buzzing about blooming plants in the blueberry and wildflower fields, perennial beds, shrubberies, and trees that are their habitat. These important pollinators are sometimes forgotten when most conversations lead towards the endangered European honeybees. Carpenter bees and others are already being used to help pollinate crops. If you click on the images a slide show will pop up with the identity of each species.
Bees

A green bee pollinates a wild strawberry blossom.

A cuckoo bee feeds alongside a Eastern Pine Elfin butterfly.
I am still learning to identify the many bees of the Apidae family I share my home and habitat with. There is a large diversity offering importance and interest to this steward. The cuckoo bee is named for its kleptoparasitic habits similar to those of the cuckoo bird. Like the bird, the cuckoo bee does not feel obliged to build a nest of her own. The cuckoo bee inserts her eggs into the nests of other bees and her hatchlings then dine on the pollen balls and even the host larva. Nature can be so cunning and cruel.
Wasps
- Solitary
Hearing the word wasp brings fear to some minds, but many wasps cannot sting and are very beneficial insects. They do have intriguing ways of survival.
The Blue mud daubers are like the cuckoo bee, bird and Brown-headed Cowbirds in how they too plant their eggs in nests of others. The Blue mud daubers collect water from pools and puddles to make other mud daubers nest pliable and after creating an opening, they remove eggs the other parent had planted. The usurper then deposits her own eggs into the nest before resealing it.
Great Golden Digger Wasps have a gruesome method especially for grasshoppers and such in how they prepare their nest for their offspring. A female captures and sedates a grasshopper or two and leaves them, along with one of her eggs, in a nest she digs then covers leaving a dark tale to unfold. It is hard to imagine the fate of the grasshopper. Seems a terrible death, but one that nourishes new life. It is a story repeated over and again throughout the insect world.
Not really a wasp this almond-eyed hornet is an ‘aireal yellow-jacket’ and he will sting if his nest is threatened. It is a good idea to pay attention to where these valuable creatures create their nests and to put up a sign or marker to signify their presence to avoid accidentally stepping into their aggression. Knowledge allows for peaceful co-existence.
I am busily buzzing along trying to finish documenting last years fauna. Spring is finally with us bringing song, butterflies and buzzing anew. In the next few days tree tops across the way on Cary Hill will pop into color creating a mini fall like landscape. My Stellata Magnolia is in full glorious bloom casting a subtle sweetness around the gardens as Tree Swallows sweep the sky snacking on black flies
What an amazing selection of bees. I particularly like the green one! I tried to learn the different bumblebees that we have here, but I find them so difficult to separate and also the cuckoo bees look remarkably similar to many of them! Our ranger service has trained up a number of volunteers to survey for bees and already they have found several species here that have not previously been recorded.
I am afraid I am not so fond of wasps. They either annoy me when I am trying to eat out of doors in the summer, or as you mention the parasitize other creatures. A number of butterfly caterpillars and chrysalis I have tried to rear have been lost to small black wasps, as I mentioned in my most recent post!!
Yes, Nick it is hard to determine the identities of the array of bees and I am not sure I will ever get around to it. I do want to document as many as I can and in time try to learn each species by name. Good mind exercise while I am learning the life in our habitat. I understand your feelings about wasps. Nature is tough.
Great shots of all the lovely pollinators at your house!
Thank you Robin. I find the diversity of these creatures fascinating and want to document them all.
how wonderful that you are documenting them! lovely to know i can come here to help me identify bees that I find.
Thank you Carol.
Hello Carol. That’s a lot of species of pollinators. It is great that you document them, that is already a very good resource assessment in your property.