Say hello to this bee. She belongs to the genus Osmia, so I refer to her as an Osmia bee.

Osmia sp. bee flying to parry penstemon

These bees are in the family Megachilidae, which are known as the leafcutter or Mason bees. So they are related to the bees that I am currently boarding in my bee condo. The Osmia bees are widespread, found in Eurasia and The New World. There are 135 species of Osmia found in North America, but they are more common in the west. Here in Tucson they are rare since they do not really like the heat. The photo was taken in my yard at the beginning of spring, when the wildflowers are blooming and the temperature is cool. I was excited to find this girl nesting in my yard! These bees nest pretty much anywhere they can. They are also solitary, so there is only one female per nest. They prefer cavities that someone else has created, like the bee condos or hollow plant stems. They have also been known to nest in snail shells!

Male Osmia sp.

Osmia bees are small to medium sized bees with robust bodies. Most of them are metallic…brilliant blue, green and even purple metallic colors. I think they are just beautifully colored. Osmia bees (as well as all the bees in the family Megachilidae) carry pollen on the underside of their abdomen, unlike most other bees that carry pollen on their back legs (a structure called the pollen basket). There are several species that are used for orchard pollination: Osmia lignaria a.k.a. blue orchard bee (native to N. America), Osmia cornifrons a.k.a. hornfaced bee (used in Japan), Osmia rufa a.k.a. red mason bee (used in Europe), and Osmia ribifloris a.k.a. blueberry bee (native to N.America).

There are several companies in N.America that are currently evaluating and trying to use the red mason and hornfaced bee for pollinating their orchards… I know of a few almond and blueberry orchards that are currently working on this.

Look for these beauties when you go out…especially all of you in California. They are abundant all across California. I have worked on 6 species in the San Bernardino Mountains. You all may need to go out and look at natures beauty during these tough times.

Happy National Pollinators Week! Across the nation people all around are focusing on the importance of pollinators…so why not join them.  Many of the blogs out there have great material to celebrate such important insects…the ones that pollinate our food and flowers. Bug Girl has many links to sites that contain a complete list of crops that are insect pollinated. Many people do not realize that every third bite of food is directly or indirectly a product of insect pollination. If you eat beef…thank the bees. Yes…bees help with beef. Alfalfa bees pollinate the alfalfa that is feed to cattle. There you have it. It’s like playing the Kevin Bacon drinking game, except with pollinators. What am I doing? My work with pollinators never actually stops, and I have been trying to get the word about their importance. This Thursday I will be giving a talk at the local botanical gardens about bees and their role in pollination.

Bee (Megachilidae) pollinating citrus

NAPPC (The North American Pollinator Protection Campaign) and Pollinator Partnership (who I am currently employed by) have a great website with many resources to help you celebrate pollinator week. There are links with events that are happening at in your state, kits to host a party, and recipes using ingredients that are insect pollinated. Take this time to appreciate the pollinators.

Thank you Pollinators!

Today was a great day. I met with Greg Corman who is the owner of Gardening Insights. Greg is an eco-friendly landscaper here in Tucson, AZ. Today we met to talk about native bees. You can see why it was such a good day. Coffee, bees, ways to increase native bee populations…a few of my favorite topics. Greg has started building bee habitat sculptures which he sells for people to place in their gardens. As Greg’s website states, it’s Art meets Ecology in support of native pollinators. I was invited to his home to check out some of the sculptures and brainstorm more ways to help native bees. The sculptures were amazing. Some were very Zen, others were rustic, but very artsy AND VERY useful for those bees that may not have found nesting sites.

one of Greg Corman's sculptures (photo taken from the Gardening Insights website)

While looking at one of the sculptures (which had at least 150 nesting sites/holes), eight female leaf cutter bees were buzzing around searching for their nest. They didn’t care that I was there. They just buzzed and went about their business. Many of the holes were already filled and capped/covered with material to keep intruders out. Some holes were covered with soil, others with small rocks, sap, and plant resins…like the photos below.

bee nest entrance closed off (capped) with rocks

Nest capped with soil

Nest capped with plant resin

The bee habitat sculptures attract those bees that build their nest in above ground cavities like twigs, abandoned beetle holes in trees or stumps, or any other place that they can find. Some of the bees that were buzzing around were a type of leaf cutter bee in the family Megachilidae. Here is one that is about to gather pollen from one of my cactus flowers.

I get excited when I hear about people helping out native bees and for that matter any pollinator. Again, they are very important for our livelihood, and their populations seem to be decreasing (my research also showed this), so please support them and help them out. You can build native bee condos, or buy sculptures like those that Greg creates if you would like to have beautiful art as part of you landscaping AND help the bees out at the same time. You can also plant a pollinator garden to give them food while they are out.  Oh, and another point regarding the sculptures…they are made from 100% recycled material.

Way to go Greg!

Buzzy is Back! And I passed…I defended my Master’s research and passed. Yay! Thanks to everyone who sent well wishes. Your thoughts were greatly appreciated. Now I have time to…well, work on my manuscript (more), get ready to move to California, and find a job in California. Hint, hint…any Californians hiring?

O.K. back to the bees…I mean what could be better, right? So here they are…the bee bachelors.

In previous posts (and here) I wrote about how male bees usually do not sleep inside the nest with the females, but they find their own places to bunker down for the night. Some sleep in flowers, others cluster together by the hundreds on a tree branch, and others will chose a branch or leaf to bite down on and hang on for the night.

I found one male hanging on a leaf…

I also found two males, facing each other. Although it looks as if antennae wars are going on, they are not, but who knows what goes on when the sun goes down…

And I also found many males on a branch…

It was like a bee bachelor party was going on!

For more lovely photos of sleeping male bees, please visit goodbears new nature blog and Eric Eaton’s insect blog with photos of sleeping male longhorned bees (I love the long horned bees…they are absolutely adorable!).

male bees on Creosote branch

I have been tagged by Myrmecos for the meme Things That Have Stung Me. So here are the rules:

1. List all the things that have stung you.
2. Bites don’t count.
3. Pass the meme to 3 or more other bloggers you suspect have also been well-zinged.

I hate to admit it, but my stinging history is not as colorful (and painful) as one might suspect. So here are the things that have stung me:

Bees:

Apis mellifera (honeybees)

Lasioglossum sp. (sweat bees) Don’t fold your arms when they are drinking sweat from them.

Osmia sp.: This one I deserved. I was learning how to catch and place bees into insect vials. I accidentally squeezed the the bee between the vial wall and my finger. I learned very quickly after that.

Wasps:

various Vespula sp. (yellow-jackets)

Ants

I don’t know what ant stung me. All I know is it was in my pants (after a research trip), it stung me 3 times and left my right leg numb, and in pain with 3 large bruises. By the time I stopped the car, pulled my pants down, it was rolled in a ball and I quickly tossed it out the window.

Now, here are people I would like to know about:

1. goodbear

2. bug girl

3. Norwegica

Hello bee blog readers. I haven’t posted lately because I have been busy…and stressed. You see, buzzy is getting ready to defend. Yup, I defend this coming Wednesday. I have been writing and preparing a talk. So, to decrease my stress I go out and take pictures of bees.

This is a bee in the genus Centris.  There are 22 different bee species known to reside in the U.S. They are very beautiful bees. They are robust and super fuzzy. I mean just look at her legs! That orange stuff on her legs is pollen. Aren’t her olive colored eyes beautiful? If you live in the southwest, these bees are currently out and buzzing around. Look for them.

Centris sp.

Please enjoy the beauty of these special insects and thank them for the pollination services they do for us all.

The bees are out and boy are they busy…and buzzy (had to throw that in). The bee condo that I had put up at my house is being utilized by many many bees. It’s not a cloud of bees, like in the movies. It’s more like 1-2 bees fly in at the same time or out, but if you stay and watch, more fly in and out. 10 of the holes are already filled with baby bees and plugged at the entrance. The bees that are using the condo are leafcutter bees or mason bees as some call them (in the family Megachilidae).  These are the bees that use pieces of leaves to line their nests and and wrap their babies with. The female bees find leaves that they like (they really like leaves from the rose family), but at my house they use the leaves from out citrus tree. The fly onto a leave and within a matter of seconds, they cut out a circular piece of leaf using their mandibles (bee teeth), leaving behind a leaf that looks like this…

Some of you may notice these circular patterns on some of your leaves. It means you have leafcutters nearby. Here is a photo of a bee holding a piece of leaf.

bee holding a piece of leaf under it's body

The bees take the piece of leaf back to their nest and they line the walls with several pieces, make a pollen ball, lay an egg, then cover the entrance of that one cell with more leaves. Here is what the inside of the nest would look like…

Goodbear found this leafcutter nest inside one of her outside rugs. You can see how the bee used many many pieces of leaves to wrap her babies in.

photo by Goodbear (Digital Muzzle)

So, if you see those weird ring patterns on your leaves, feel lucky that you have leafcutter bees nearby. They use the leaves of plants, but they are also pollinating those plants and many more in your yard.

Tomorrow morning I am driving up to the Biosphere2 to place 4 bee condos around the property as part of my permanent display. And there’s a bonus…one of the bee condos already has an occupant…

Leaf cutter bee inside bee condo

It’s all business with her. She leaves the nest for a few minutes gathering pollen. Comes back to nest, usually circling around me a few times, finding her nest and staying inside for a few minutes as she unloads the pollen and makes a pollen ball. Once she is done, she leaves again. When I’m not near the nest she is faster at finding her nest. She still circles, but not as many times. You see, some of these bees use landmarks to find their nest from a distance, then they use odor cues to correctly identify their individual nest. When I am near the nest, I throw her off. Me standing there would be like a grocery store suddenly popping up at the corner of your block. If it wasn’t there when you left for work and suddenly appeared when you returned, you would do a double take. Well, she does the same.

leaf cutter bee entering her nest

What nice, though, is that she isn’t bothered by my presence. Maybe a bit confused at first, but not bothered. It was nice just watching her leave and return.

Since she has taken up occupancy, I placed a small pebble over the entrance with some tape to hold it in place. I did this so that she stays inside and I don’t take the nest leaving her behind. I just hope I don’t confuse her too much when I remove the pebble and she is in a new place. Wish her luck in her new home.

This past weekend I was out at one of my study plots taking some photographs. There were many cactus blooms and many more bees. I love watching the bee activity around the cactus blooms, especially the male bee activity. Male bees fly around specific blooms looking for female bees to mate with. If you watch the blooms you will see bees diving into flowers and quickly flying out, then flying around the bloom and taking off…repeating this crazy flying loop many many times. Here is how the process takes place:

1. Female bee finds flower to visit and gather pollen or nectar.

2. Female bee ’swims’ around to gather pollen…Ahhhhhhh POLLEN!

3. Male bee spots unsuspecting female bee. Here is his chance to try to mate with this unsuspecting female that is busy gathering pollen. One minute she’s swimming in pollen, and before she knows it…there’s a male in the flower with her

4. She tries to fly out of the flower, but he’s fast. He grabs her and wrestles her down. MATE WITH ME!

5. More intense wrestling goes on. He continues to try to mount her as she tries to get away.

Now, I am not sure if he actually succeeded. It happened so fast and after this shot she flew away and he stayed behind. After, he flew away and began patrolling flowers for more unsuspecting females.

Of course there are many other males patrolling the same flowers competing with other males to get to these females. If male beeX takes a break in one of the flowers that male beeY is patrolling, male beeY will dive bomb the flower and chase male beeX away.

This goes on and on all day. Who says males can’t multitask?