Category: Insects

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Utah’s wool-gathering bees

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Fluffy contents of the reed nest
of a carder bee
Courtesy & Copyright Jim Cane

Do you grow the ornamental plants called “lamb’s ears” or rose campion in your flower gardens? These plants produce dense mats of buttery soft woolly leaves. That leaf fuzz is avidly sought by so-called “carder bees” of the genus Anthidium. In textiles, carding is the mechanical process of combing through the fibers of cotton or wool to align them before spinning. The female carder bee has multi-toothed mandibles that she uses to shave the leaf hairs, gathering the fluff into a ball to bring back to her nest.

Lamb’s ear leaf shaved of some of its hairs
Courtesy & Copyright Jim Cane

Carder bees nest solitarily in aboveground cavities, typically an old beetle burrow in deadwood. Each female lines her tunnel with the carded plant hairs. Onto this fluffy pillow she assembles a provision of pollen mixed with nectar, which constitutes the food mass soon to be eaten by her progeny, one provision per larva.

Carder bees are stout, round, relatively hairless bees marked in black and yellow. We have several species, the largest being a European escapee that is associated with lamb’s ears. The female’s nesting biology is distinctive enough, but it is the male’s behavior that you will notice first.

Male carder bee at lavender flower
Courtesy & Copyright Jim Cane

Male carder bees are aggressive, territorial suitors. They spend all day in flight, tirelessly patrolling lamb’s ears and garden flowers, particularly culinary sage and Russian sage. Males dart at all carder bees of either gender, as well as other like-sized bees. They pounce upon and wrestle these unsuspecting individuals to the ground. If it is a female of their species, they will endeavor to mate with her. Such is the brazen courtship of male carder bees. Look now for these wool gathering bees in your gardens before summer bids us farewell.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.
Credits:

Photos: Courtesy & Copyright Jim Cane

Text: Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

Anthidium_manicatum, BugGuide, BugGuide.net, https://bugguide.net/node/view/7744

Anthidium_manicatum, Discover Life, Polistes Foundation, https://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?search=Anthidium+manicatum

Wool Carder Bee (Anthidium manicatum), Solitarybee.com, Paul Betts, (March 2018, website no longer functioning)

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Boxelder Bug Poetry

Boxelder Bugs
Courtesy Michigan Department of Agriculture

Hi, I’m Holly Strand from Stokes Nature Center in beautiful Logan Canyon.

Bill Holm wrote and taught in the English department at Southwest Minnesota State University for 27 years. He helped me come to terms with one aspect of Utah nature that I found troublesome at first —the ubiquitous and abundant boxelder bug.

“My boxelder bugs have odd preferences,” Holm wrote. “They love radio dials, phonograph speakers, amplifiers, pianos, and harpsichords. Some would argue that this is because of the warmth and vibrations, but I prefer to think it is because of their taste for Bach and Vivaldi.”

According to Utah State University’s Cooperative Extension, the red and white bugs are essentially harmless. They stain walls or carpets if you squish them. However, they are annoying primarily because they enter homes and other buildings in large numbers. Once in, they’ll find their way into your personal effects. Like your hair or your toothbrush or the glass of water you keep on the bedside table.

After hearing me go off on a boxelder bug rant, a friend gave me Holm’s book Boxelder Bug Variations: A meditation of an idea in language and music. It changed my attitude toward with household invaders, as now I think of them as poetic. Maybe if I read a few verses, you will feel the same:

First, a boxelder bug prayer:

I want so little
For so little time
A south window,
A wall to climb,
The smell of coffee,
A radio knob,
Nothing to eat,
Nothing to rob,
Not love, not power,
Not even a penny,
Forgive me only
For being so many.

And finally, three boxelder bug haiku:

(1) Careful if you kill him!
There may be an afterlife
For both of you.

(2) Those black spots in your lamp?
Only bugs who didn’t make it
Into the next world.

(3) The piano string stops trembling
But boxelder bugs
Keep dancing.

Thanks to Jen Levy for introducing me to boxelder bug poetry, and to Milkweed Editions for permission to reproduce Bill Holm’s work.

For Wild About Utah and Stokes Nature Center, I’m Holly Strand.

Credits:
Photo: Courtesy Michigan Department of Agriculture
Text: Stokes Nature Center: Holly Strand

Sources & Additional Reading

Boxelder Bug Variations: A Meditation on an Idea in Language and Music, Holm, Bill, 1985, Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions https://www.milkweed.org/

Boxelder Bugs Fact Sheet, Erin Hodgson, Alan H. Roe, USU Cooperative Extension:
https://extension.usu.edu/files/factsheets/boxelder.pdf

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Midges, gnats and no see ums

Male Chironomid midge
on Antelope Island
Courtesy & © 2008 Carol Davis
per Creative Commons Attribution
-Noncommercial-
No Derivative Works 3.0
United States License

Hi, I’m Holly Strand from Stokes Nature Center in beautiful Logan Canyon.

Summer has finally arrived, even in northern Utah. As the temperature rises, different locations around the state are experiencing the perfect conditions for no see ums.

Not long ago, a couple of no see ums got under my skin– so to speak. I asked some friends and colleagues, “What exactly is a no see um?” Is it the same thing as a gnat? A midge?” Only one person in 20 knew the difference, so I thought I’d take a few minutes to sort out what is what.

First of all, let’s talk about midges. Midges are small, mosquito lookalikes. They represent a very large group in the taxonomic order of flies or Diptera. There are at least 2000 species different species in North America alone. They often occur in huge swarms, usually in the evening. You might see them “dancing” in the air, in columns rising up from the ground. Sometimes they will rest in large numbers on walls, screens and buildings, particularly during the warmer part of the day. When present in large numbers, they can be annoying. Midges are why you should keep your mouth closed when riding your bike.

Most midge species don’t bite. The term no see ums refers to the ones that do bite. In southern Utah biting midges –aka no see ums –are often called cedar gnats. You may also hear them referred to as punkies or moose flies as well as some other names not mentionable on air.
No see ums can surprise you for their bite is completely out of proportion to their tiny size—which is less than 1/8 of an inch long. Like mosquitoes, only the female bites for she needs a blood meal to produce eggs.

Unlike mosquitoes, no see ums don’t puncture the skin. They cut it open with their scissor-like mandibles. Then they squirt a chemical on the open wound to prevent clotting. Finally they suck up the resulting pool of blood through their proboscis, a straw-like structure near their mouth. Think of no see ums as miniature blenders making a smoothie out of you!

Finally, let’s consider gnats. The word gnat is a very loose term that seems to refer to either midges or biting midges or both, depending on the speaker.

Whatever you choose to call them, midges/gnats/no see ums are guaranteed to season the air and to decorate your windshield this summer.
For pictures of swarming midges and a scary close-up of a no see um see www.wildaboututah.org

For Wild About Utah and Stokes Nature Center, I’m Holly Strand.

Credits:
Images: Courtesy Wikimedia and Carol Davis, Photographer
Text:     Holly Strand, Stokes Nature Center

Sources & Additional Reading

Borror, Donald J., Charles A. Triplehorn (Author), Norman F. Johnson Introduction to the Study of Insects, 6th Edition. 1989. NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers.

Hovenweep National Monument. Biting Gnats fact sheet. www.nps.gov/hov

Utah County Online. Health: Mosquito Abatement. Insects Resembling Mosquitoes. https://www.co.utah.ut.us/dept/healthmosq/MosqLookAlikes.asp
[Accessed June 25, 2010]

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Gardening for Bees

Gardening for Bees: Click to view a larger picture; Bee Garden courtesy and copyright 2010 Linda Kervin
Bee Garden
Courtesy of and
Copyright © 2010 Linda Kervin
Three years ago, the United States Senate unanimously designated National Pollinator Week. This year it falls from June 21 to 27. Pollination is vitally important for many domesticated and wild plants. By far the most important pollinators are bees and Utah is home to 900 species. Bees pollinate food crops such as apples, cherries, apricots, squashes, raspberries and cucumbers. Bees are also essential to pollinate most wildflowers in our native plant communities.Gardening for Bees

Happily, few of our native bees have much venom or any inclination to sting; in part because they are solitary nesters. In contrast, honeybees and bumblebees are social and in defense of home will deliver memorable stings.

All bees visit flowers to sup nectar for energy. Females also collect protein-rich pollen to feed their offspring. Grain and hay fields, pavement and buildings have all displaced native plant communities, but our flower gardens can become valuable cafeterias for local bee populations. Because bees find their favorite flowers by their color or scent, a bee garden can also appeal to people.

Anthidium Bee on Lavender
Courtesy of and
Copyright © 2010 Jim Cane

Different bees prefer different kinds of flowers. Many bees are attracted to members of the pea family, such as vetches, clovers and locoweeds. Bees appreciate sunflowers and their kin as well as lavender and many other herbs. On the other hand, some plants have been so altered by plant breeders that they no longer feed bees. Examples include doubled flowers like marigolds, flowers with ruffles like petunias and some other common bedding plants.

Please consider our important pollinators when you are choosing what to plant in your garden. You will be rewarded by increased fruit and vegetable yields while surrounded by beautiful blooms.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.
Credits:
Photos: Courtesy and Copyright 2010 Jim Cane and Linda Kervin
Text: Jim Cane and Linda Kervin, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Male Melissodes Bees
Sleeping on Sunflower
Courtesy of and
Copyright © 2010 Jim Cane

Additional Reading:

https://www.nbii.gov/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=222&mode=2&in_hi_userid=2&cached=true

https://www.ars.usda.gov/main/site_main.htm?modecode=54-28-05-00

https://extension.usu.edu/htm/publications/publication=10414

Crop domestication facilitated rapid geographical expansion of a specialist pollinator, the squash bee Peponapis pruinosa, Margarita M. López-Uribe, James H. Cane, Robert L. Minckley, Bryan N. Danforth
Proc. R. Soc. B 2016 283 20160443; DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.0443. Published 22 June 2016https://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/283/1833/20160443.abstract

Bumblebee Watch, https://www.bumblebeewatch.org/
Bumble Bee Watch is a citizen science project through the partnership of The Xerces Society, the University of Ottawa, Wildlife Preservation Canada, BeeSpotter, The Natural History Museum, London, and the Montreal Insectarium.