Presumed Lasioglossum bee visits bok choy on February 5. Honey bees were also busy, and one is shown for size comparison.

Even though it’s only February 5, the unusual warmth has brought out flowers – and now bees. Honey bees have been out all winter, but these are the first wild bees of spring.

This little gal (on the left) is working on bok choy in my garden. A honey bee, which was also working on these blossoms, is included on the right side for size comparison. This irridescent greenish black bee, is likely a lasioglossum, though I can be sure, because I can’t see the wing veination. It was sunny this afternoon with some clouds scuttling along, got up to 83F. It was quite breezy, so was very difficult to get a clear shot.

First Xylocopa virginica of 2012

I hate to post a blurry photo, but the wind was whipping the plant and focus was very difficult. This gal got spooked by my presence and flew off after this shot. But it does make proof that the eastern carpenter bee was out at this extremely early date. I always have said, it’s not really spring yet, until you see the carpenter bees.

In the case of the tomato, mankind has (perhaps unwittingly) selected plants with the defect of being self fertile. This likely came about as the plant was moved from its native area to other parts of the world without moving the native pollinators that were best equipped to cross pollinate them. So the surviving strains were the ones that had this defect.

Looking at cross pollination from the point of view of the fruit grower is utterly different from the point of view of the seed grower. With most plants, good cross pollination is very much desired, in some cases to make fruit at all, and in other cases to cause better quality fruit. Of course uncontrolled cross pollination makes the seed grower nuts, as he cannot predict exactly the characteristics of the plants grown from the seed.

Tomatoes are kind of a dream plant that can function both for the fruit grower and the seed producer. The reason is that they exhibit little “inbreeding depression.” That is, most plants, if they have any self fertility at all, will grow puny fruit and poor quality seed.

Tomatoes can be self fertilized and still be fairly vigorous.

In a discussion like this, someone always pipes up with the claim that tomatoes are “self pollinating.” This is a myth. Remember that myths are half truths. Most of the time, when you hear the myth, it is, of course, in the context of why tomatoes AREN’T self pollinating. Odd, isn’t it?

Most flowers have anthers (the male organ) that have the pollen on the outside. Anything that brushes the anther is likely to pick up some pollen. Tomato anthers are different; they are hollow tubes with the pollen grains inside. They are not released to the touch. The tomato must have help. It requires MOTION to release the pollen. Wind can accomplish this to some extent. Pollen grains are shaken loose and may land on the sticky stigma, thus accomplishing fertilization of some of the seeds.

Note that this is not self pollination, as the tomato could not do this of itself.

You can hand pollinate tomatoes by using any means of shaking the blossoms that doesn’t break plant parts. You can tap on the stem below the flower cluster with a pencil. Or you can hold an electric toothbrush against the stem. But the best tomato pollinator is a bee that “sonicates” or “buzz pollinates” the flower.

Bumblebee on a tomato blossom

Bees, most often bumblebees in eastern USA, will land on the flower, pulling it down until the anther is vertical (thus getting gravity’s help) and then vibrating their wing muscles (and their entire bodies) to shake loose the pollen. The vibration causes the flower to resonate, and many grains of pollen are shaken loose. This drops onto the bee’s belly, which is also vibrating. Some of it will stick to the bee and be available for cross pollination when she visits a flower on another plant.

Much of it will bounce right back up to the sticky stigma.

The development of the fleshy part of the fruit is stimulated by the fertilization of the seeds. Pollen grains on the stigma grow pollen tubes to the incipient seeds and fertilize them. If only a few grains of pollen are delivered, a fruit may form, but will not size up.

When enough grains of pollen are delivered to fertilize most of the incipient seeds, the fruit will be all that it can be.

If you are growing tomatoes for fruit, and not for seed saving, cross pollination is not of much concern to you. You just want good pollination to get the most and best fruit possible.

If you are growing tomatoes for seed, then you want to control the pollination more carefully. Generally, a gardener who saves seeds would want to keep an open pollinated variety pure, so you seek means to isolate the plants. This can be done by excluding bees (cages around plant or flowers), by sufficient distance between plants, or by timing bloom at different times.

Some tomato varieties are even nicer to the seed grower. The pollen is viable, even before the flower opens. If the flower gets sufficient motion (one reason why gardeners intuitively love early morning thunderstorms), it’s possible for the seeds to be fully fertilized quickly and keeping cross pollination down to a bare minimum.

Every flower in the cluster set fruit.

In many years, I’ve not seen tomatoes set every blossom, as they have this year. There are few of the blossom clusters with a “hole” where there is no tomato forming.

I’ve been exulting each morning as I watch the bumblebees “buzzing” the flowers. As they taper off, and go to other flowers, they are replaced by little flying emeralds – the tiny, in-your-face green bees that happily gather the remnants the bumblebee left.

Not everyone is aware of the debt we owe to the bees. Pollination can be the limiting factor for many crops, including tomatoes. I have had years when I added compost, adjusted the pH with lime, fertilized, and carefully weeded the plants I set out, only to see many of the blossoms drop off, and the total crop wind up a sorry one.

Tomato flowers do not give the bees nectar, only pollen, but this pollen is gathered by the bees for the nutrition of their young. As they do so, they make a trade with the tomato plants by aiding the fertilization of the seeds that will make next year’s crop.

In another blog post, I’ll discuss the mechanisms of pollen release, which is different for tomatoes than most crops, as well as discuss the popular myth of “self pollinating” tomatoes.

But for now, I just simply want to rejoice and enjoy the fruits of the labors of my little friends.

In what is regarded as the oldest book of the Bible, a wealthy man, Job, is stripped of his wealth, furthermore he loses much of his family and his health.

The book is commonly regarded as an answer to the reason for evil in the world. It also speaks clearly to the role of humans in their environment.

After Job’s complaints about his losses, God speaks (Job 39) and “puts him in his place.”

He says, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone — while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

God goes on to give many examples of things in Creation that are beyond Job’s ken and control. He says, “Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread its wings toward the south?
Does the eagle soar at your command and build its nest on high?

Contrary to modern man’s prevaling idea, we are not the masters of the universe. We look around and feel a sense of awe at what we see. The Pagan looks at the universe and worships it. But Job shows us that it is the Creator, not the creation, that is the object of true worship.

The Psalmist (chapter eight) says: “What is man that you are mindful of him,the son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor.
You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea…

We have a role to play in the management of the creation. But that role is contingent upon our relationship with the Creator.

The Secular Humanist claims that environmental destruction has come from the Judeo-Christian idea of the dominion of man. While there may be Jews and Christians that have participated in the rape and pillage of the planet, the charge totally ignores that much of the worst damage has been done by those who oppose and reject the Judeo-Christian heritage. The charge also ignores that the environmental movement has its roots in modern Christian cultures.

Modern man is incredibly arrogant. We think we are at the pinnacle of accomplishment, and all is now within our control.

When a catastrophic leak of an oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico caused massive damage to the ecology, President Obama promised to restore the Gulf of Mexico to “better than it was before.” The arrogance of such a statement can only be overshadowed by its ignorance, and it’s amazing to me that it attracted so little attention.

The solution to the environmental problem, and the placing of Earth Day (really every day) in proper perspective lies in humbly returning to the very first commandment ever given to humankind – a commandment that was given long before the famous Ten.

It is simply God’s instuction: “Tend My garden.”

Meanwhile, from time to time, I discover some very well done videos online. One needs to be careful of online resouces. Some are quite amateurish or worse, give innacurate information. Here are some that I find are good enough to recommend to this blog’s readers:

1.  Bee Pollinators of Southwest Virginia Crops:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_etyEdu9fQ
There is sheer beauty in this video of honeybees, bumblebee queens & workers, bumblebee and halictid bee buzz pollination, orchard mason bees, digger bees, mining bees, longhorned bees, small and large carpenter bees, and squash bees mating.

There’s even a bumblebee “giving the tarsi” (the possible insect equivalent of “giving the finger”). One can watch this several times, and see new things in each viewing. This is also an excellent way to begin learning to identify common groups of bees. 
By Virginia Tech Entomology Department

2. Pollination Methods: Cucurbits:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5a-coN2Xgg&NR=1
This video starts off somewhat slow, but don’t get bored by the lengthy description of the various cucurbit species. It morphs into a good illustration of one means of hand pollination – a technique that may be quite valuable for gardeners who lack bees. Then it shows how hybrids are created, and shows the modern technology of “seedless” triploid hybrids.  Finally it ends with a clip on how to save cucumber seeds.
By the University of Wisconsin, Madison

 3. Honeybee collecting pollen:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD1u86rWx38&NR=1  Few people realize that honeybees make an active choice when visiting flowers. This may be based on the resources of the flowers, or, more likely, on the needs of the hives.

To collect nectar, or to collect pollen is the choice. Worker bees that are collecting nectar take longer in each flower, probing the flower’s nectiaries with their tongues for sweet droplets which they carry in their crops back to the hives. Bee that are gathering nectar will accomplish some pollination by accident. 

But other bees make the choice to deliberately gather pollen, likely because there is quite a bit of open brood in the hive that requires the pollen for protein for its development. This is the subject of this shore clip.

These bees do not probe with their tongues; rather they “doggy paddle” through the stamens to get as much pollen as possible to adhere to their fuzzy bodies. Then they comb this polle into their pollen baskets and carry it home.
Bees that are deliberately gathering pollen are as much as ten times more efficient pollinators than those who are gathering nectar.

Beekeeper who provide pollination service try to manage the hives so that they maximize open brood at the time of the crop’s bloom. This provides incentive for the worker bees to gather pollen, and makes them more efficient for the farmers’ needs.

I am always looking for more good videos, so if you have an especially good site to recommend, please do!

Here are some of the plants that help take care of our bees, along with our thoughts on their value:

Winter

Dandelion, henbit and charlock in nearby fields will bloom throughout winter except in the coldest spells. In the dead of winter, I usually see only honeybees working these, but toward spring, other species join them. (No we do not herbicide our lawn “weeds,” as these are important forage plants – and we don’t want to contaminate our ground water. Plus their blossoms are pretty in their own right!)  All three of these plants are introductions, but so far as we know, there are no native plants that fulfil the same function

Spring

Red maple trees bloom nearby in February, and willow trees soon after. Both provide forage (food) for honeybees. Tupelo adds a major nectar source in April. There are a few flowering quinces in the neighborhood; bees love these. Crocus and daffidils also get bee attention.

Redbud trees also bloom early, usually by the end of March. Carpenter bees and honeybees tackle redbuds furiously. Chickasaw plum and some domestic plums in the neighborhood are the first of the fruit blossoms that supply lots of nectar. Dogwood is NOT a significant bee plant; bees rarely visit their blossoms.

Oaks, pecans, hickories and pines shed a lot of pollen, which bees sometimes gather, but it is of low nutritional value. An occasional black locust is highly favored by the bees, as is Carolina cherry.

Dewberry is a major pollen source in March and early April, followed closely by blackberry which gives both pollen and nectar. Apples, crabapples, and pears usually feed the first queen bumblebees, though I have occasionally seen queens on plums earlier. Apples are very important for orchard mason bees, carpenter bees and honeybees. We have planted low-chill apple varieties which are suited to the South.

Wisteria and azaleas explode with blooms in April and are important feed for bumblebees. The first tiny Lasioglossom bees are often found on the stamens of azalea blossoms.

Carolina jessamine yields toxic nectar that kills honeybee brood. Photina (red tip) is a good feeder, if it is not trimmed for hedges.

Dahoon holly and boxwood are practically attacked by a variety of bee species. A few years ago, bradford pears were likewise covered with thousands of andrena bees when they bloomed. Today these bees are very scarce; you’d be lucky to see a half dozen on a tree, along with a couple honeybees and a bumblebee or two.

By the end of April, spiderwort is worked by a variety of bee species, especially Lasioglossum. Plantain also begins to feed Lasioglossum bees. A variety of blueberry and huckleberry species bloom from early April to early June, giving the blueberry bees good forage. Carpenter bees love these as well, but do not pollinate them, as they cut slits at the base of the petals to steal the nectar. Carpenter bees will also do this for honeysuckle, buckeye, and other flowers with a deep corolla.

Privit is regarded as invasive, but this megachilid bee doesn't care. Privits that are kept trimmed for hedges do not bloom, but when they go wild, become small trees which provide excellent bee forage.

By late spring we have more garden flowers, including vegetables like squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, butter beans, and okra. Marigolds do feed a few bees, but do not seem to be of major interest. Likewise zinnia seems to be of some small use. Cosmos has been a major hit with the bees. Bee balm is significant, but only blooms for a short time. Its wild relative, horsemint is much better for bees. Cultivated morning glories are a big bust, as bees show little interest, though their wild (and highly invasive) relatives are much more attended, by bumblebees and megachilids.

Passion flowers are very good, and clematis attracts a few bumblebees. Lantana and butterfly bush seem to only be important to butterflies. Lasioglossum seems to love parsley blooms.

Sunflowers are a major hit with melissodes bees and honeybees. We plan to plant more of these – our only complaint being the relatively short bloom period for each planting.

A halictid bee loads up on sunflower pollen.

Summer

When the hot weather of summer comes, there is a dearth of flowers. A few trumpet vines help feed bumblebees. An invasive plant, Brazillian vervain, supplies nectar through the hottest periods. Bitterweed begins to bloom in the heat, and is heavily worked by megachilid bees. Butterfly weed is present in sparse amounts; we aim to increase the supply of this. There are also occasional pine hibiscuses, which bees seem to love.

Sumac is also present around in spotty amounts – the southern variety blooming in midsummer, unlike in the north, where it is a spring flower. Sometimes sumac will be literally covered with bees. too bad it’s not a common plant.

Caryopteris – a plant we brought from Tennessee – gets wild applause from the bumblebees.

Another hot weather plant is crape myrtle, which does get a steady, though small amount of attention from bees.  Once cotton begins to bloom, honeybees and bumblebees will concentrate there, and of course, they frequently get poisoned.

Fall

By late August, we begin to see more fall flowers which bloom in a progression through the end of November. Joe Pye weed is wonderful for the bees, as are any of the various goldenrod species. Many asters, such as mistflower, also bloom through the fall, with frostweed continuing after frost many years.

Rudbeckia and Bidens are extremely important wildflowers, through the fall, feeding a variety of bee species.

We’ve listed quite a number of forage plants on or near our home. We could list a lot more, within driving distance.  But many of them, though important, are quite sparse in occurance. Roadside mowing and herbicide use, hedgerow removal, pine plantations and the chemlawn mentality have removed many of the wild bee forage plants.

Flower gardens can help, but many of the showiest flowers are overbred and of little value to bees. We tore out our roses, when we found that the bees had no interest in them and they were prone to fungus diseases and needed lots of spraying to keep them pretty.

In another post, we’ll be talking about native vs alien plants, and some of our use of each. Your thoughts (on the topic) are always appreciated.

In planning for the bees, we want to have a continuous supply of nectar and pollen sources throughout the growing season, which extends from mid-March to about December 1 here in coastal South Carolina.

We have a huge flush of spring blossoms here, so we don’t need to focus on this too much. Then follows a hot, sometimes dry, summer season, which is quite barren for the bees. Autumn brings back more flowers again, expecially if we have good late summer rains. But fall is not usually as good as spring for the bees.

Megachilid bee on butterfly weed: Note the "scopa" - the pollen collecting hairs on her belly, which enable her to be an excellent pollinator, as well as save some pollen to feed her babies.

(Note that we are not speaking just of honeybees for this garden project, though they will benefit. There are several hundred species of bees in the Southeast, ranging from the large carpenter bee, and some of the larger species of bumblebees, down to tiny Lasioglossum and Ceratina bees that are sometimes hardly bigger than gnats. Favorites of mine include the “Jelly Belly” bees – megachilids that carry bright colored pollen on their abdomens and my “Little Green Bees from Mars” the gorgeous in-your-face green colored halictid bees.)

Besides plantings, we provide a number of other services to help the bees. We have dripping water for drinks and mud for the ones who use this. We have patches of bare ground, both sandy and clay for the bees that prefer ground nesting. We also have reeds and bored wood blocks for nesting sites.

And we are extremely careful with pesticides – never using them in any way that would contaminate nectar and pollen. We can’t control what our neighbors do, but we’ve done our best to educate them that you can’t lay Sevin dust all over your blooming squash and cukes…or you’ll bite the hand that feeds you!

In other posts, I’ll talk about some individual flowers that are of special interest, and we’ll discuss what we already have in trees, fruits, and wild and domestic flowers that feed bees. But right now I want to list the wildflower seeds that I have already purchased or plan to very soon. These are ones that seem to be of special value to a variety of bee species.

After careful consideration, this is the core list of native plant choices to add to our collection this year:

1. Butterfly Weed, Asclepias tuberosa (great for Monarch butterflies as well)

2. Anise Hyssop, Agastache foeniculum

3. Rice Button Aster, Aster dumosus

4. White Swan Coneflower, Echinacea purpurea

5. New York Ironweed, Vernonia noveboracensis and Purple Ironweed, Vernonia fasciculata

5. Joe Pye Weed, Eupatorium dubius or E. fistulis

6. Hairy Mountain Mint, Pycnanthemum pilosum

In another post we’ll also review some non-native possibilities that I may also plant.

This is a regional list, of course. But most of the lists I’ve seen are for the North or for the West. These are ones that I’m certain will do exceptionally well in the Southeast.

Note that I’m focusing on perennials. This is partly because I’m a cheapskate who doesn’t want to keep on buying the same seeds each year – and partly because we are looking at the long term.

People often talk about “attracting bees” to get their garden veggies pollinated. This is a crock! It’s very shortsighted thinking. If we just plant attractive flowers, the few bees around will simply bypass our garden veggies. We want to plan and plant for the long term – to build bee populations back up to the way they used to be. Then there will be enough competition that even less attractive garden veggies will get bee visits.

Little Lasioglossum bees love to collect pollen from the spiderwort wildflowers that are already established at our little wildlife refuge.

Most of these will be started early to be transplanted after frost danger is past. I hope to able to sell some plants to recoup my costs. And what I can’t sell or use, I’ll probably plant out in some wild spots and hope for the best.

I would love to hear from others, particularly if you can add some very good species to the list, but all comments are welcome.

Honeybees have an industry organized around them; wild bees have some support groups, but they tend to be small. But the bees have very similar needs of habitat, parasites and pests problems, and especially pesticide practices of their forage areas.

I received a very strong objection from a wild bee advocate, to my statement that honeybees have more protection than wild bees. The advocate pointed out the various groups that have arisen to help protect the wild bees.

Because it was a private e-mail, I cannot post that person’s comments here, but perhaps I was not sufficiently specific in my statement, so I will post  a clarification: I’ve found that anyone who works in a public job (research, extension) is highly reluctant to take on pesticide misuse (job security perhaps?).  And the pesticide cops here in SC, very pointedly exclude wild bees from pesticide label protection.

On the other hand, beekeepers like myself have been active and vocal in trying to get enforcement of label directions. Any time there are crops or weeds in bloom in an application area, bees (of all kinds) are at risk, and the pesticide labels have specific instructions to not apply when bees will be damaged by the contamination of their food supply.

Agricultural advisors such as extension, and the pesticide cops themselves, usually do not base their bee protection advice on the pesticide labels.

Instead they suggest a “run-around” (ie. notify beekeepers) that enables pesticide users to evade the label directions – and offers NO protection at all for wild bees.

Ask any serious beekeeper, and he will tell you of times when his beehives were knocked out of productive service by a pesticide applied in violation of the label (whether or not he or she was notified of the application). Sometimes the entire field force of a hive is wiped out. Other times the adults do not die, but bring long lasting poisoned pollen back to be stored away in the hives, then fed to the young during the winter when the hives are extremely vulnerable, due to lack of fresh clean pollen being foraged. Thus a summer poison can kill a hive months later.

Now honeybee hives that had damage usually get the keeper’s best efforts at salvage/recovery, including feeding, removal of contaminated frames of pollen, and sometimes combining two or more hives – better one hive surviving, than two or more weak ones dying over the winter.

Wild bees get none of this help. If the adult bee is poisoned and dies, there will be no more nest building. If it carries contaminated pollen back to provision its young, the young will die, and there will be no next generation.

I am sure you understand that I am glad that wild bees are getting more, attention, and thus may be getting more protection. But all it takes is one severe “hit” at the wrong time to do some serious damage to a species in the area.

And I think you’ll agree that it’s easier (albeit expensive) to replace lost honeybees than to replace lost wild bees when they are destroyed.

That is why wild bee advocates and honeybee advocates need to join together. Whenever there is sloppy, careless pesticide applications that do not take the bee protection label instructions seriously, BOTH wild and domestic bees will suffer, but the wild bees will probably suffer more.

Note: A flow chart that organizes label directions to protect bees can be found at:  http://pollinator.com/pesticides/flowchart.htm

Last wild bee of 2010

I was showing our wild bee house to a friend on Thursday morning, December 30 at about 10:30, when, to my great surprise, a little green bee came flying out of one of the canes. I did not have a camera with me to document it. But it happened so fast that I barely got a glimpse anyway.

On Thursday, we were coming out of the deep freeze that has characterized most of December. On the 2nd, we got our first killing frost, and it went into a record cold snap, hitting 15 degrees a couple weeks later, and  even bringing in a rare couple inches of snow on Christmas day.

But on Thursday, it was in the mid 40s, and would reach 61 by afternoon. The next day, New Year’s Eve, it reached 72.

I frequently checked the bee house the rest of Thursday and Friday, hoping to get another look at, and a photo of, our little halictid, but I never saw it. It was bright green, and a bit smaller than a honeybee, probably Agapostemon. It flew from a clean cane, with no sign of any plug, so I presume it was not a new hatch, but an adult that was merely sleeping in the cane.

Floral resources are scant, but there are some. Our Christmas camelias were decimated by the cold, but there are a few tattered blossoms that honeybees were checking out in the afternoons. Pansies were likewide decimated and a few rough-looking blossoms were beginning to open. Now I’ve never seen any bee visit a pansy, so it’s probably not a resource.

The regular camelias had just started blooming before the worst of the cold, but they were killed back, and no new buds have opened yet.

A few dandelions are blooming, but I’ve not seen a bee on them. Nearby, there is a little henbit blooming. Both are usually good forage plants for bees.

Wish I had a photo, but just seeing the little gal was such a surprise at this time, that I had to report it.