Giant Resin Bee

A loud buzzing drew my attention to activity on an Ironweed flower head.  I snuck in close to observe this foraging bee.

Hairless abdomen rules out Bumblebee.  That left me with an identification of Carpenter Bee, but this specimen just didn’t look like the Carpenter Bees I’m used to seeing around the barn and house.  The hair on the thorax was much darker and browner than a normal Carpenter Bee.  I concluded that I was observing a Giant Resin Bee, an introduced Asian species that is spreading quickly across the Eastern United States.

It was really going after the nectar in the Ironweed flowers.

At one point it slipped from the flower and hung belly up.  After a moment, it began using its front legs to rub the ventral side of its thorax.

A few seconds later it slipped farther down and at one point was holding on by a single hind leg.  It squirmed back-and-forth much like a dog will do when it finds something particularly stinky to roll in.  I figured it was in the clutches of either a crab spider or an ambush bug.  I moved in to see if I could spot the predator.

As I leaned closer, the bee snapped back upright and gave me a threatening look.  Whatever its strange behavior had been, it had nothing to do with being snared by a predator.

I pulled back slightly and the bee resumed its foraging.  I’ve never observed a bee that moved so clumsily about on the flowers.  It fumbled around like it had six left feet.  Here it made a belly flop on the flower with its legs hanging free on either side.  Eventually it flew off.  This was an interesting encounter, but I’m never thrilled to add another non-native species to my list of Blue Jay Barrens residents.

Little Bees

I was out exploring another one of the bare soil areas.  This one is odd because several feet of loose material overlay the bedrock.  The surface has a thin layer of clay, but beneath that is a mix of silt and sand.

Wet weather seeps keep this area wet during most of the winter.  Four weeks of droughty weather have allowed things to dry out completely.  The clay surface layer has even developed cracks.  My interest I this particular spot was a swarm of tiny bees rapidly criss-crossing the area.

They maintained an almost constant low level flight.  I kept watching for mating activity, but the only interaction between bees appeared to be occasional collisions that resulted in both bees tumbling to the ground.  After a split second disentanglement on the ground, they were back in the air.  If any mating occurred, it had to have been the briefest of contacts.

I don’t recall having seen this species before.  It isn’t one of those that are typically attracted to sweat and I haven’t seen it on any flowers.

Those few that landed did so in just a brief instant.  Their small size made it hard to see what they were doing.  The grass stalks in the foreground give an idea of the small size of these bees.

My best look was of a dead specimen left headless on the ground.

Some disappeared into underground burrows, so it’s possible this was a nesting area and not the site of courtship activities.  Those that landed wasted no time disappearing into the nests.  It’s also possible that they are a parasitic species and were depositing eggs in another species nest.

Others that landed did a quick run across the ground and then took off.  Maybe they were having some difficulty in relocating their nests.  I watched the activity for about 15 minutes at which time the bees disappeared.  It happened suddenly and I have no idea where they went.  I guess they either dispersed or took their swarming activities elsewhere.  It was an interesting encounter and like many others I’ve had, I’ll probably never know exactly what was going on.

Dust Baths and Solitary Bees

Wild Turkeys love dust baths and will sometimes create a sizable wallow as they dust their feathers. During periods of frequent rainfall, it becomes hard to find any soil dry enough to create dust. At the upper end of this old erosion gully is a steep area with good exposure to sunlight. This is one of the first places to dry out and the turkeys have scraped at the side of the cut until they have created a dusty shelf on which to bathe.

Turkeys aren’t the only animals that are attracted to an open patch of soil. Some native bees excavate brood tunnels in areas of bare soil. Within these tunnels are individual chambers, each containing an egg and a supply of food.

This bee is searching for the entrance to its burrow. The turkeys were scared off at my approach so the surface of the soil had just been recently disturbed. Bees locate their burrow entrance by referencing nearby landmarks and soil features. I was wondering if the bee would be able to find its nest after the turkeys rearranged the landscape.

Finally, the bee found what it was looking for. I imagine it’s going to unload pollen into one of the brood chambers. Native bees are very effective pollinators, but many species specialize in collecting pollen from a narrow range of plants. I’ll see little bees similar to this, visiting flowers all summer long.

I left my hand print in the dust to give scale to this bare spot. Many land managers are conditioned to see bare ground as a sign of poor management efforts. That can be true when it’s the site of accelerated erosion that allows soil particles to leave the site, but bare ground can also be a specialized habitat that adds value to a diverse ecosystem. Turkeys rarely use the same dusting site for more than a few months, so spots like this are short lived and are reclaimed by vegetation when the turkey disturbance ends. The turkeys may disrupt the bee nesting activities this spring, but this will be an excellent bee nesting area for several years to come.

An Odd Bee

I found this odd bee on a cluster of sumac flowers. It’s the size of a large Bumble Bee, but the coloration and pattern are not what I’m used to seeing.

It could be a Large Carpenter Bee. I read what I had available on bee identification and found that a key characteristic is the pattern of wing veins and cells. The problem is that I didn’t capture the necessary features in the photo, so the bee goes unidentified.

Its behavior was also rather odd. It seemed to be clinging more with the mandibles than the legs. The body also seemed to be rather loose and emaciated, reminding me of a hornworm infested with parasites.