Wasps in the Wildlife Garden

Did you know that most wasps are solitary nesting and don't sting humans?

There are some fascinating wasp species that visit our garden plants for nectar, and use our landscape to hunt for food for their young including caterpillars, sawfly larvae, crickets and katydids.

Find out more about the behavior and lifecycles of some of the wasps who share our landscape with us on my post this week at Native Plants Wildlife Gardens.

Native Bee Spotlight: Green Sweat Bees ~ Agapostemon spp.

Green Sweat Bees (Metallic Green Bees) ~ Agapostemon spp.

Green Sweat Bees are one of the most brightly colored native bees in our area. A bright emerald green head and thorax, with a striped abdomen of pale to bright yellow. Some females in this genus are entirely green, and often difficult to distinguish from bees in the Augochlora genus.

We see Green Sweat Bees in late May, some of the first females visit Ohio Spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis) to collect and feed on pollen. No nectar is offered by this native. Read about other visitors to Spiderwort here.

Green Sweat Bees nest in the ground, building long vertical nest cavities. Most are solitary nesting like the majority of native bees, but some species share the same nest entrance but build their own cavities.

Another good source of pollen for Green Sweat Bee females in early spring is Great St. John's Wort (Hypericum pyramidatum).

Green Sweat Bees are short tongued, so they visit shallow or easily accessible flowers for nectar. They like to visit both the prairie native Hoary Vervain (Verbena stricta), found in dry, sunny locales as well as the wetland native Blue Vervain, Verbena hastata for nectar.

Visiting Blue Vervain for nectar.

Look for Green Sweat Bees on Coneflower (Echinacea) species. Females collected pollen and feed on nectar on our Pale Purple Coneflower.

They will investigate the flowers of Wild Bergamot, possibly feeding on pollen but cannot reach the nectar in the long flower tubes.

Culver's Root (Veronicastrum virginicum) is a late summer favorite of Green Sweat Bees. The numerous shallow white tubular flowers provide an abundance of nectar.

Look for Green Sweat Bees in late summer on Cup Plant (Silphium perfoliatum) as well as many of the fall flowering Asters.

These native bees are fast moving and camera shy. It's often difficult to capture them because their flower visits are very short, so have your camera ready if you spot one.






References:
Attracting Native Pollinators: The Xerces Society Guide, Protecting North America's Bees and Butterflies


Tall Beard Tongue Insect Visitors

Tall Beard Tongue ~ Penstemon digitalis
Beard tongue flowers have a large, hairy staminode on the lower half of the tubular flower which restricts access to bees to the flower and helps in pollen deposition. Small to medium sized bees are the most frequent visitors.

Tall Beard Tongue flowers can be white to light pink, sometimes with darker pink to purple stripes which act as nectar guides for bees.

Small Carpenter Bees (Ceratina spp.) visit Tall Beard Tongue flowers primarily to feed on pollen. Their small size allows them to easily climb over the staminode into the tubular flowers to access the pollen on the anthers.

As they feed on pollen, they often inadvertently contact the stigma. The hairs on the staminode keep their bodies held closer to the stigma, resulting in more contact and pollen transfer.

Digger Bees (Anthophora spp.) are frequent visitors to Tall Beard Tongue flowers as well. They are fast moving and visit flowers for a very short time frame compared to Small Carpenter Bees.

Their medium sized bodies and long tongues allow them access into the tubular flower which results in abundant pollen removal as their bodies scrape on the anthers above.

Bumble Bees (Bombus spp.) are not primary pollinators of Tall Beard Tongue. Visiting the flowers for nectar, they are able to reach the nectar reward with their long tongues without having to insert their body into the corolla and come away with pollen on their bodies.

Look for small holes chewed at the base of the flower. Mason Wasps will chew holes to reach the nectar reward without having to enter the flower. Smaller bees will take advantage of these nectar thievery holes.




References:
Attracting Native Pollinators: The Xerces Society Guide, Protecting North America's Bees and Butterflies

The Interaction between Pollinator Size and the Bristle Staminode of Penstemon digitalis (Scrophulariaceae) Gregg Dieringer and Leticia Cabrera R. American Journal of Botany , Vol. 89, No. 6 (Jun., 2002), pp. 991-997