Tag: Bees

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Cuckoo Bees

Cuckoo bees: Indiscriminate Cuckoo bee Courtesy & © Mark Brunson, Photographer
Indiscriminate Cuckoo Bee
Courtesy & © Mark Brunson, Photographer

Indiscriminate Cuckoo bee Courtesy & © Mark Brunson, PhotographerIndiscriminate Cuckoo Bee
Courtesy & © Mark Brunson, Photographer

I’d like to tell you a crime story. At least, it would be a crime story if told from a human perspective. But is it still a crime story if it’s about the natural world? I’ll tell it and then let you decide for yourself.

First let me set the stage: Not long ago I was hiking in Northern Utah’s Bear River Range. It was the height of wildflower season, and I was enjoying the colorful variety of blossoms along the trail. I stopped to admire a tall, showy plant with dozens of purplish-green blossoms: Frasera speciosa, commonly known as monument plant or green gentian. It’s often seen near the top of Logan Canyon, but what struck me about this particular monument plant was that it was full of bumble bees.

I knew that a Utah-based conservation science organization, Sageland Collaborative, is asking community volunteers to help them measure bumble bee diversity in the state, so I took out my phone and snapped a few photos. Later I uploaded the best photos into an app called iNaturalist so they’d end up in the Utah Pollinator Pursuit database maintained by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources with Sageland’s help. Then I waited to learn what species of bumble bee I’d seen. The answer came back: indiscriminate cuckoo bumble bee. I thought: What an unusual name. I needed to know more.

It turns out “indiscriminate” simply means that, unlike many native bees that are particular about what they eat, this species doesn’t much care where it gets its nectar. As for “cuckoo”? Like the birds they’re named after, these bumble bees are thieves.

Or to say it more scientifically: these bumble bees are kleptoparasites. Parasites – animals that take resources they need from other species to the detriment of those species – and “klepto,” as in stealing. Like cuckoos or cowbirds, they lay their eggs in the nests of other bumble bee species, letting the workers from the host species do the work of raising them.

Here’s where our crime story gets even more sinister. When a cuckoo bumble bee queen finds a suitable nest to rob – one with a good-sized group of workers to raise the bee larvae, but not so many workers that they can easily protect their queen – she kills the host queen and becomes part of the colony, laying her alien eggs for the host workers to feed.

Cuckoo bumble bees don’t need their own workers, so they’re less often seen on wildflowers. In fact, there’s a good chance that some of the other bumble bees on my monument plant – the ones I didn’t get a picture of – were members of the host species. They also don’t need to take pollen back to a nest of their own, so they don’t have those “pollen baskets” we often see on the hind legs of female bumble bees.

But they do move pollen from flower to flower when it sticks to their bodies as they feed. In other words, they do play a role in sustaining the wildflowers we enjoy every summer. So is this really a crime story? Or is it just another example of the amazing diversity of behaviors found in nature? While you’re deciding about that for yourselves, I hope you get a chance to enjoy watching Utah’s various kinds of bumble bees as they do their all-important work.

I’m Mark Brunson, and I’m wild about Utah’s native bees.

Credits:

Images Courtesy & Copyright Mark Brunson, Photographer
Featured Audio: Courtesy & © Kevin Colver, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections and J. Chase and K.W. Baldwin. https://upr.org/
Text: Mark Brunson, https://www.usu.edu/experts/profile/mark-brunson/
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah pieces authored by Mark Brunson

Sheffield, Cory S., Cuckoo bees, Epeoloides pilosula, The Xerces Society, https://www.xerces.org/endangered-species/species-profiles/at-risk-bees/cuckoo-bees

Smale, Parker, Understanding cuckoo bumble bees: terrors or treasures?, Wildlife Preservation Canada, February 29, 2024, https://wildlifepreservation.ca/blog/understanding-cuckoo-bumble-bees-terrors-or-treasures/

Barth, Amanda, The Unique Lives of Cuckoo Bees, Sageland Collaborative, July 25, 2024, https://sagelandcollaborative.org/blog/2024/7/25/the-unique-lives-of-cuckoo-bees

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Discovering Honeybees

Discovering Honeybees: Bee Approaching Sunflower Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer
Bee Approaching Sunflower
Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer
I was a bit surprised when I met a local beekeeper who insisted she’d never eat any honey except that produced by bees in the mountains above Cache Valley. It made sense that the taste of honey would be determined by the flowers where the bees collected nectar and pollen. It turns out the Forest Service issues permits to local beekeepers to put hives around Tony Grove

Wanting to know more, I dropped into the Honeyland store in Cache Valley and was soon mesmerized by the active cut-away hive on display. It was a teacher’s dream come true – hundreds of bees – all diligently on task. Wide-eyed, I watched as a bee flew in at the bottom of the screen through a tunnel under the window looking very much like a bike rider with two full paniers She deposited the full sacks of pollen and then she began to dance. This took me quickly to the internet to learn more.. The bees dance is called a “waggle dance” – a straight line calibrated to communicate how far away the food source is, and a circular return arc to orient the path to the food. The waggle dancing bee can direct her sisters to a food source up to five miles away.

  • It takes 550 worker bees visiting 2 million flowers to make 1 pound of honey.
  • Top speed for a bee is 15 mph.
  • Each honey bee makes one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.


    • I soon returned to the store’s cut away hive and finally found the queen – a bit tricky as she looks like all the others except she’s one and a half times bigger. I watched as she dipped her tail into one hexagonal cell after another. On a good day a queen will lay 2,000 eggs.

    Busy, busy bees working together to set aside enough honey to feed themselves during the winter.

    The poet Dick Paetzke once called honey “the soul of a field of flowers”

    Mountain honey looks and tastes a little different than honey made by bees pollinating Cache Valley alfalfa. Both are incredibly delicious.

    Aristotle got it right: “Honey is the nectar of the gods.”

    This is Mary Heers and I am Wild About Utah.

    Credits:
    Photos: Courtesy & Copyright © Mary Heers
    Text: Mary Heers

    Additional Reading

    https://thehoneybeeconservancy.org/

    Burlew, Rusty, Honeybee Suite, https://honeybeesuite.com/

    Honeybee, National Geographic Kids, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/h/honeybee/

    About The Honeybee, American Beekeeping Federation, https://www.abfnet.org/page/PollinatorFacts

    Utah Beekeepers Association, https://www.utahbeekeepers.com/

    Moab Bee Inspired Gardens, Utah State University, https://beeinspired.usu.edu/about/

    Bee Fest 2020, Sponsored by Catalyst Magazine and Utah Museum of Natural History,
    Recorded Facebook Livestream: https://www.facebook.com/events/2719162278365095/?post_id=2757236484557674&view=permalink
    SLC Bee Fest Homepage: https://slcbeefest.com/?fbclid=IwAR3xJ4E-WMNm5hizCKiajsmu0brmG1kMKEwgS0IcWij0RwpjLYTdOu4bODs

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    Sunflowers, the late summer feast

    Sunflowers, the late summer feast: Click for a larger view of the sunflower garden. Image courtesy and copyright Jim Cane
    Stand of ornamental sunflowers
    in Cache Valley
    Image courtesy and Copyright Jim Cane

    Click for a larger view. Image courtesy and copyright Jim CaneHoney bee foraging at sunflower
    Image courtesy and Copyright Jim Cane


    Click for a larger view. Image courtesy and copyright Jim CaneMale Melissodes bees and a skipper
    butterfly sleeping on a sunflower at dusk
    Image Courtesy and Copyright Jim Cane

    Now, in late summer, the sunny golden blooms of sunflowers adorn gardens, roadsides and wild places across much of the United States. Utah is home to five sunflower species, four of them annuals. You are most likely to see Helianthus annuus, the aptly named “common sunflower”. Early domestication of common sunflower by Plains Indians led to the major oilseed crop that the world enjoys today.

    Humans are not the only species seated at the sunflower dining table, however. The grub of one specialist weevil bores in sunflower stalks; as do larvae of 2 long-horned beetles. Another weevil hollows out the seeds. A third decapitates the flowerhead before ovipositing. One moth’s caterpillar gnaws the roots; several cutworm species topple seedling sunflowers, and several more kinds of butterfly caterpillars skeletonize sunflower leaves. In your garden, though, sunflowers generally escape pestilence. Chickadees and both American and Lesser Goldfinches cling to the ripe seed heads to pluck out the nutritious seeds. Listen for the plaintive call of the Lesser Goldfinch which is very distinctive.

    [Lesser Goldfinch, Audio recording courtesy Kevin Colver, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections: Songbirds of the Southwest Canyon Country]

    All those sunflower seeds are the direct result of pollination by bees. In the American West, more than 200 species of native bees visit sunflowers for nectar or pollen, a remarkably large fauna for any flower. None is more charming than the male of the bee genus Melissodes. They are discernible by their extra long antennae. Melissodes males dart among sunflowers all day long, seeking willing mates. Come sunset, the males bed down on the flower heads to snooze. They become drowsy enough to pet with your fingertip, and being males, have no sting. So if you have sunflowers at hand, chances are you have Melissodes bees around too. Look over your sunflowers this evening, and you may be lucky enough to find these dozing bachelor bees with their extra long antennae.

    This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

    Credits:

    Audio: Courtesy Kevin J. Colver, 7loons.com and On Amazon.com
    Photos: Courtesy and Copyright Jim Cane
    Text: Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society

    Additional Reading:

    LeBuhn, Gretchen, Greenleaf, Sarah, Cohen, David, The Great Sunflower Project, Department of Biology, San Francisco State University, https://www.greatsunflower.org/

    Charlet, Larry D., Brewer, Gary J., Sunflower Insect Pest Management in North America, Radcliff’s IPM World Textbook, University of Minnesota, https://ipmworld.umn.edu/chapters/charlet2.htm

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    The Native Bees of Utah

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

    The industry and cooperation of honeybees have inspired many a philosopher and society, including the Mormons who settled along the Wasatch front. The hive, or more specifically a skep, was later chosen as the emblem for the new state of Utah. But the honeybee, like it’s pioneer admirers, is a recent European immigrant, brought over for the wax and honey that colonies produce.

    Utah did not lack for pollinators, however, prior to European settlement. More than 1000 species of native bees inhabit Utah, with several hundred species in any given county. A few of these bees — bumblebees and sweat bees — are social. They produce annual colonies headed by a queen. However, the vast majority of our bees are not social. For these, each adult female makes her own nest with no help from her sisters or mate.

    Most solitary bee species nest underground; others use old beetle burrows in deadwood. The resident female subdivides her tunnel into bee-sized cavities. Each cavity receives a cache of pollen moistened with nectar and a single egg. There each grub-like larva will feed and develop in solitude. Most solitary bees will spend the winter here in their natal home.

    Bombus griseocollis Queen
    Foraging on Hedysarum
    Courtesy and
    Copyright © 2008 Jamie Strange

    Native bees pollinate many of Utah’s wildflowers, doing so inadvertently as they busily gather pollen for their progeny. Many solitary bee species are taxonomic specialists, focusing all of their pollen foraging efforts on one or a few related genera of flowering plants. Some common hosts for specialist bees in Utah include squashes, sunflowers, globemallows and penstemons. Sweet honey does not result from the labors of solitary bees, but fruits and seeds do. The industry of Utah’s native bees merits our attention and admiration.

    This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

    Credits:

    Text: Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society

    Additional Reading:

    USDA-ARS Pollinating Insects – Biology, Management and Systematics Laboratory, https://www.ars.usda.gov/main/site_main.htm?modecode=54-28-05-00

    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

    Hager, Rachel, Bees, Bees And More Bees! Researchers Find Over 650 Bee Species In Grand Staircase-Escalante, UPR-Utah Public Radio, Nov 20, 2018, https://www.upr.org/post/bees-bees-and-more-bees-researchers-find-over-650-bee-species-grand-staircase-escalante

    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.