GROBigRed - Bees, Butterflies, and Beyond

Kait Chapman & Jody Green Author

10/11/2024 Added

12 Plays

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Pollinator Gardening: Bees, Butterflies, and Beyond

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[00:00:00.000]So collectively, we are the insect portion of the pollinator gardening Grow Big Red series.
[00:00:21.400]And we get to talk about bugs and I get to specifically talk about bees.
[00:00:27.300]And I want to just tell you that I can talk about bees for probably three hours.
[00:00:33.020]And I'm going to this is going to be like 20 minutes.
[00:00:35.320]So if you guys are at all interested in any more bug talks, I think that we should have like a Go Bug Red series and Kate and I can take over.
[00:00:45.100]But we we don't want to push bugs on anyone who doesn't want to be part of it.
[00:00:49.380]So I would encourage you to, you know, if you get an evaluation to send a note to us if you want anything that has to do with bugs.
[00:00:57.280]But we can move on.
[00:01:01.140]So I'm pretty excited to talk about bees today.
[00:01:04.000]Kate is working the slides.
[00:01:06.620]So I'm just going to go with whatever she does.
[00:01:10.020]But so one of my favorite animals, because insects are animals, is the bee.
[00:01:15.100]They are amazing pollinators and there are so many of them.
[00:01:18.980]So I'm going to talk about some of the bees, but my favorite group of bees are going to be solitary bees.
[00:01:25.980]And they're just so cute.
[00:01:27.740]Anyway, that's all.
[00:01:28.380]You'll see some pictures later and you'll just see how cute they are.
[00:01:30.980]So, in fact, bees are the most effective pollinators, which, you know, because their mission is to collect pollen.
[00:01:37.240]So they're not accidental.
[00:01:38.800]They are specifically picking up pollen grains and transferring it from the male parts of the flower to the female parts of the flower of the same species.
[00:01:46.200]So, you know, they're on that mission.
[00:01:48.220]And so that's why they're great pollinators.
[00:01:50.160]And they've co-evolved with those flowering plants to do that.
[00:01:54.940]They both, you know.
[00:01:56.800]So plants and animals, these bees rely on pollen to survive.
[00:02:01.540]So bees undergo complete metamorphosis.
[00:02:05.140]So baby bees are larvae.
[00:02:07.000]And they also feed on pollen.
[00:02:10.320]So as adults, pollen is going to be eaten, but also nectar.
[00:02:17.520]Nectar more so.
[00:02:19.140]Nectar is going to be the carbohydrates.
[00:02:20.600]Pollen is the protein.
[00:02:21.900]And the baby bees, they're going to eat little pollen.
[00:02:26.660]Or more pollen and a little bit of nectar.
[00:02:29.620]So they're just really, really cool.
[00:02:32.940]So it is estimated, the bee scientists, that there are like 20,000 to 30,000 different
[00:02:39.640]species of bees in the world.
[00:02:41.920]And so this is a poster I have also in my office.
[00:02:47.060]But in North America alone, U.S. and Canada, 4,000 bee species.
[00:02:53.360]And you're probably thinking, like, how can that be?
[00:02:55.480]I only know, like, the highest.
[00:02:56.640]There's a honeybee and there's a couple bumblebees around.
[00:02:58.680]But there are 4,000 bees, and we'll talk about some of those.
[00:03:02.280]Even, you know, our colleague John Porter, who did the marketing campaign and put the pollinator gardening up there, he picked the honeybee.
[00:03:13.680]And that, I wouldn't have given him that bee to put in marketing.
[00:03:18.220]It's not that I don't love honeybees, but, you know, I mean, I do play bee favorites.
[00:03:22.500]But anyway, getting back to that.
[00:03:24.680]So I know we have participants.
[00:03:26.580]We have participants from all over, but I want to say that in Nebraska, it's estimated
[00:03:30.360]that we have 435 different species of bees.
[00:03:33.840]So, you know, if you think, take out honeybee, take out some 20 bumblebees, there are a lot
[00:03:39.020]of solitary bees.
[00:03:40.100]And if you can see that chart, there's a little bit of differences of their, you know, their
[00:03:44.640]life, their life history.
[00:03:46.340]Okay, next slide, please.
[00:03:47.820]So bees are going to differ.
[00:03:52.320]Next slide, please.
[00:03:55.500]Thanks.
[00:03:56.340]Bees are going to differ in many ways.
[00:03:58.300]So this includes their level of sociality, their nesting location, and their nesting
[00:04:03.460]material.
[00:04:03.960]So what they build their nest out of.
[00:04:05.400]But what is similar for all bees and why they're great pollinators is because they have specific
[00:04:11.540]adaptations to make them great, you know, pollinators.
[00:04:15.240]They have these hairs on their body.
[00:04:18.000]So, you know, that's one of the reasons why they're so cute, because they're furry.
[00:04:21.460]And the hairs on their body, they're electrostatically.
[00:04:26.260]So pollen's going to stick to them.
[00:04:28.280]And that charge builds up as they fly.
[00:04:32.120]They also have these specialized hairs on their body that collect the pollen.
[00:04:37.060]So these are called scopa.
[00:04:39.100]And also the pollen baskets, you know, they're little saddlebags of pollen.
[00:04:43.800]Those are called corbicula.
[00:04:45.180]And if you can see the middle bee there, that's a bumblebee.
[00:04:47.920]You can see that corbicula on the leg.
[00:04:50.400]And then the honeybees on the right.
[00:04:52.400]And you can see those pollen baskets, right?
[00:04:54.780]So they're collecting.
[00:04:56.820]They've just got these great hairs.
[00:04:58.880]And then they scrape that pollen off for their larvae.
[00:05:03.340]They also, some of them have the ability to use flight muscles
[00:05:08.000]to create sound vibrations and do something called buzz pollination.
[00:05:11.860]And side note, honeybees can't do that.
[00:05:14.800]But some other bees can.
[00:05:16.300]Bees, they demonstrate flower constancy,
[00:05:20.740]which is the tendency of an individual pollinator to visit certain flower species.
[00:05:26.100]So, you know, they'll come to the same flowers over time.
[00:05:31.040]So that makes them good pollinators.
[00:05:32.380]And also, some of them are going to be specialists.
[00:05:34.800]So they may only select a few specific flowers and be pollinators of that.
[00:05:41.820]And you can see on this slide, when broken down based on sociality, the nesting structure
[00:05:48.800]and the ecology within those nests are going to be a little bit different,
[00:05:52.420]depending on the group of bee.
[00:05:54.020]So the one on the far left,
[00:05:56.020]that's a solitary bee.
[00:05:57.300]There's a few different examples in there because there are so many.
[00:06:00.700]And you can see that there is not like there's not a single queen.
[00:06:05.340]There are no workers.
[00:06:06.820]There's not really a central hive even.
[00:06:09.420]So think of this is like a single mother, a female going around collecting pollen and then laying
[00:06:16.180]an egg where the pollen is so her larvae can survive and have offspring.
[00:06:20.300]The top picture there is a ground nesting bee and the ones below are just a
[00:06:25.940]series of different solitary bees that are demonstrating different types of nests in
[00:06:33.300]cavities.
[00:06:33.860]And you can see the nesting material for that top tunnel are plant material.
[00:06:39.280]The middle one is a resin bee.
[00:06:40.900]So those cells where each individual larvae is developing into a bee is separated by resin.
[00:06:47.460]And then the bottom one, that's a mason bee.
[00:06:50.160]So they're separated.
[00:06:51.140]Mason means mud and being a potter.
[00:06:55.060]And so they're...
[00:06:55.860]They're separated, those cells, by mud.
[00:06:58.960]The middle bee there, that's a bumblebee.
[00:07:01.180]You can see it's very different than what you may think.
[00:07:04.060]I don't know how often you get to peer into a bumblebee nest, but, you know, it does have
[00:07:08.880]a single queen and it's a disorganized cluster of honeypots.
[00:07:13.160]Very cool, except if they're nesting close to where you don't want them to nest.
[00:07:17.640]These are typically found underground and abandoned rodent burrows or under buildings,
[00:07:22.920]sheds, birdhouses, compost piles.
[00:07:25.780]And then the honeybee, a lot of people are familiar with those.
[00:07:29.480]You know, they're very organized.
[00:07:30.840]They've got wax combs, and they are the only bee in the U.S. and Canada that make and eat honey.
[00:07:37.000]This is a hive.
[00:07:38.840]It consists of a queen bee and thousands of female workers and then some male drones.
[00:07:44.620]Next slide, please.
[00:07:46.360]So, you know, we can't talk about bees without mentioning the European honeybee,
[00:07:51.440]but I just want to mention, because I do love bees, I love honey,
[00:07:55.700]that it's a non-native bee.
[00:07:57.980]It's a managed bee.
[00:07:59.600]It's domesticated from Europe, and it's managed.
[00:08:03.620]So we have to work really hard at taking care of these bees.
[00:08:06.640]When you see them with other bees, and that's why I do slides with comparison,
[00:08:11.820]you can see they're a little bit different, but they're a golden brown,
[00:08:14.440]unlike the maybe yellow and black that we think of when we think of bees.
[00:08:18.620]But I am not a honeybee specialist, but I know the perfect bee specialist,
[00:08:24.560]if anyone is interested.
[00:08:25.620]If anyone is interested in starting beekeeping or wanting more about beekeeping.
[00:08:31.040]So the UNL Bee Club, look that up.
[00:08:33.680]And Dr. Judy Wee Smart is a good friend and fantastic.
[00:08:37.420]But honeybees are perennial colonies, so they're active throughout the year,
[00:08:43.940]unlike the bees that I'm going to talk about moving forward.
[00:08:47.880]So the next group of bees I'm going to talk about are bumblebees.
[00:08:51.400]You know, these are big, big cuties.
[00:08:55.540]There are over 250 bumblebees worldwide and 50 in North America,
[00:09:00.700]and I think we have 20 in Nebraska.
[00:09:02.380]There's also even an endangered species bumblebee.
[00:09:05.920]So that's the rusty patched bumblebee.
[00:09:08.880]These are medium to large size bees, bright yellow, really fuzzy.
[00:09:14.160]Right now, you may see them.
[00:09:18.220]They're generalist pollinators, so they will go to a variety of different plants.
[00:09:22.580]And you may see them at lower temperatures,
[00:09:25.460]and also at higher elevations, they're able to do that.
[00:09:29.300]About their nesting, so their nest size and the number of individuals
[00:09:35.720]will depend based on the species.
[00:09:38.420]But their life cycle is very similar to a lot of the other bees
[00:09:42.120]that I'm going to just talk about moving forward.
[00:09:44.280]So it's an annual colony.
[00:09:46.980]And what that means is that that nest site or that colony only survives for one year.
[00:09:53.000]So we'll talk a bumblebee here.
[00:09:55.380]So the queen or a fertilized female will overwinter.
[00:10:00.780]And this is, you know, in a protected location.
[00:10:03.360]We actually don't know where she does this in some cases.
[00:10:06.800]There's actually a citizen science project called Bumble Bee Watch,
[00:10:10.300]you know, that is trying to track those things.
[00:10:13.240]But she will overwinter.
[00:10:15.120]She becomes active in the spring.
[00:10:16.980]And she starts looking for a good place to start a new nest, her own nest for this year.
[00:10:22.180]And so that's what you may be seeing.
[00:10:23.600]They're really big right now.
[00:10:25.300]And they're just so cool.
[00:10:27.380]And they don't even care.
[00:10:28.300]You know, they're not a sting hazard.
[00:10:29.840]She has no nest to protect.
[00:10:31.700]She's looking for a place.
[00:10:32.760]She will, you know, start creating the wax pots, lay some eggs.
[00:10:38.000]And she'll have her, you know, a small brood of workers.
[00:10:41.680]And then she will continue on.
[00:10:43.400]In the late summer, she produces males.
[00:10:46.960]They mate. And the cycle goes on where only the overwintering fertilized queen will survive.
[00:10:52.460]And that's just maybe, you know, if they're
[00:10:55.220]nesting underground, you don't know what it kind of looks like.
[00:10:57.640]This is a bumblebee nest in the middle of someone's lawn.
[00:11:00.780]Next slide, please.
[00:11:03.140]So there are a lot of solitary bees, and that's what we're going to talk about for the rest of this.
[00:11:12.320]They are very diverse in appearance in their nesting location and their nest structure.
[00:11:18.320]And as you saw on the other side, then the materials they use to build those nests and separate those cells of their offspring
[00:11:25.140]But I want to mention that these are most of these are pictures that I've taken unless there's a credit at the bottom.
[00:11:32.400]I look at everyone else's bugs for my job, but in my free time I look at my own bugs and I honestly I just love bees so much that that's probably what I'm doing so.
[00:11:43.440]This is just a slide full of different solitary bees and you can just see like just how cute they are. But 70% of these solitary bees live underground.
[00:11:55.060]So we don't even know where they are. They're just underground.
[00:11:57.800]These two on the left pictures I didn't take I was not this lucky, but a lot of times you'll see holes in the ground and you won't even know which insect made it right so
[00:12:08.520]the one on the right I did see a bee go in there so I took it and I can say that a solitary bee went in there, but it's really good to know that, you know, we may see these bees, but we don't know where they're nested.
[00:12:20.360]So we want to be cognizant that our pollinators might really be right under our feet.
[00:12:24.980]And then 30% of the other bees, they're going to be called, we call them cavity nesters, and we'll go into existing cavities and artificial cavities, but in nature, where are they nesting?
[00:12:41.540]So they're nesting in stems, they could be nesting in, you know, holes in trees where like even a woodpecker is pecking, or like woodborne beetles are coming out of, they're just looking for tunnels that are there, because
[00:12:54.900]some of them are too lazy to make their own, right? And some of them are also able to remove the pithy
[00:13:00.820]parts and the soft parts of stems and create nesting habitat. So in this slide here, and this
[00:13:06.180]is put together, this illustration by Heather Holm, if you don't have any of her books or listen to any
[00:13:10.980]of her talks, she's fantastic. But this illustration just does so much, because people ask about it all
[00:13:17.780]the time, and we always try to tell people who are really into conserving and protecting pollinators
[00:13:23.860]to leave their
[00:13:24.820]flower gardens. And sometimes that brings anxiety, because people want to clean things up.
[00:13:30.740]In the vegetable garden, we definitely want to practice sanitation. But when we're talking about
[00:13:35.620]leaving stems, it might be a little hard to do, but what happens in those stems, they act as these
[00:13:42.660]cavities for those bees to put their brood in there, put the pollen in there,
[00:13:49.460]make those cells out of those materials. And so that's what it might look like. Some people
[00:13:54.740]have a hard time with it, but when that new growth comes in and the flowers and this year's growth
[00:14:00.740]comes in, you won't be able to see those stems and you'll know secretly that you're really saving
[00:14:04.980]some bees. So hopefully that makes you happy. I do want to mention carpenter bees because,
[00:14:11.700]especially in Nebraska, this is the time for them. And we do, as humans,
[00:14:15.780]have a love-hate relationship with them. We love them because they're pollinators and,
[00:14:20.020]I mean, they're a bee, right? So I love bees. But they tend to nest
[00:14:24.660]in their cavities in our structural wood. So that can be a little bit of a bummer and
[00:14:30.500]people aren't very fond of them. So these, it's very complicated in terms of if they're social
[00:14:38.340]or solitary. They're a little bit in between because they're just, I can do another whole
[00:14:44.420]hour talk on carpenter bees. We'll get back to that. But the difference between a bumblebee and
[00:14:48.620]carpenter bee, if you can see them side by side, is that the bumblebee is going to have a lot of hairs on
[00:14:54.580]its abdomen. And the carpenter bee basically has a shiny butt. And I love saying that, but that's
[00:14:59.560]what it looks like. You can pretty much see your reflection in this shiny abdomen. The carpenter
[00:15:04.760]bee, if you see something flying around, hovering around, or you find dead bees early in the spring
[00:15:11.300]in piles, look up. There may be these holes, and I think I have arrows pointing to them, these perfect
[00:15:17.820]circles that are going to be chewed out of the wood. If you try to stick your finger in there, it will hit
[00:15:24.500]the wood, because what happens is she will take a right angle and make her galleries with the grain,
[00:15:30.920]so you can't even get in there. She's an amazing mom. She uses her mandibles for that. You may get
[00:15:37.700]annoyed, because that will be, you know, the fascia of your house or the front porch. We've, you know,
[00:15:43.160]they can do that through staining and do that through painted wood. If you see a bee that's a
[00:15:49.920]carpenter bee that's kind of coming at you, that may be the male carpenter bee, and you can see it's
[00:15:54.420]got a white patch on its face. It does not have a stinger, so you can call his bluff. This is just
[00:15:59.800]a picture of what it looks like inside the galleries if you were to open up the inside of a
[00:16:04.160]wood, of a wood with a nest. The female carpenter bee provisions with bee bread, and she separates
[00:16:12.460]her cells with wood pulp, so sometimes she'll kick out the sawdust, and other times she uses it as
[00:16:19.200]pulp. So the next bee I'm going to talk about, and the
[00:16:24.340]next three are going to be in the same family. They're megachylidae, which are bees that
[00:16:32.360]have their scopa, or their pollen collecting hairs, on the underside of their abdomen,
[00:16:37.840]and sometimes you can see it. Super cute. There'll be some pictures to show you, but these are the
[00:16:42.420]native bees. These are annual colonies, and these are solitary. These are the ones that really like
[00:16:48.060]those existing cavities, so if you're interested in putting out tubes or, you know, tunnels for
[00:16:54.260]them in the form of, you know, bee hotels, they will nest in those. These mason bees are pretty
[00:17:00.020]robust bees. A lot of them are metallic blue or green or black. They're, you know, a lot of them
[00:17:05.700]are generalists, but some of these are really, really important for the pollination of orchard
[00:17:13.260]and fruit trees, and there's, you know, some stats that say that it takes 90,000 honeybees to do the
[00:17:24.180]sometimes there'll be people taking the cocoons or the pupa out, and they can also be managed and
[00:17:32.260]used for pollination services in orchards, but these guys, if you're interested in these girls,
[00:17:38.360]these bees, you know, get your hotels out now. They are active for, you know, maybe a month long
[00:17:44.960]in May and June, and by mid-June, they're already done. You'll be able to tell that their nests are
[00:17:54.100]in between their cells. They overwinter as fully formed adults in these waterproof cocoons.
[00:18:00.240]There are places you can buy them, and there are a lot of different places you can buy products
[00:18:06.040]to help with the nesting of these bees. Let's see, the next one is not native, but you will see this
[00:18:14.420]especially, I think it's pretty cosmopolitan in Nebraska. We've been seeing them more and more.
[00:18:19.900]This is the wool carter bee. If you
[00:18:24.020]ever have, if you've got lambs ear, which is what this plant is, and it's very soft and fuzzy,
[00:18:29.300]what she does, she uses that as wool. And she uses that for her nest lining and between her cells.
[00:18:37.220]Again, she will use existing cavities. Super cute. And sometimes you will see
[00:18:45.460]those little balls of fur or wool and you won't know what they are. That's because
[00:18:49.220]you've maybe disturbed her while she was trying to scrape that wool off the trichomes off the
[00:18:53.940]leaves. And sometimes she won't even go in a tunnel. That's my hand with a bunch of
[00:18:58.980]pupae in there with the wool. But that is one bee you'll see. Striking colors, black and yellow.
[00:19:07.300]And actually, if you do have a mean bee on the block, that might be the male woolcarter bee.
[00:19:13.060]He's a very territorial. Again, no stinger. Call his bluff.
[00:19:16.580]So the last little bee I'm going to talk about, and there's so many of them, is the leafcutter bee.
[00:19:24.180]Look how cute this bee is. And you can see the pollen on the underside of her abdomen.
[00:19:29.620]Adorable. Native, annual, and a solitary bee. So these bees, they're known, let's see, how many do
[00:19:40.660]we have? I think we have 140 species in the U.S. and Canada. They set more milkweed seed than I
[00:19:48.020]think any other bee. They're very important for alfalfa farmers. So sometimes they may want to manage
[00:19:53.780]those or have those out in their farms. But they're smaller and fuzzier than mason bees and they use
[00:19:59.860]plant material in their nests. So they are also existing tunnel users. Next slide, yeah. So you
[00:20:09.860]will see on the left is a pollinator habitat. You can see a leafcutter bee maybe flying in with a
[00:20:17.060]round circle of leaves and that's for the nesting material. And you can see the bee back up and she
[00:20:23.700]is going to put her abdomen in there with the pollen and scrape that off. And they do that all
[00:20:29.460]day long. It can take like one and a half to three hours to create just one cell. And then I have the
[00:20:36.740]picture of the plants here with the circles cut out. So she does that with her like her big
[00:20:42.100]mandibles. She stands on it and she cuts around it. So cool to see. And it looks like they're
[00:20:46.420]flying around with little sleeping bags. But I will often get calls from homeowners
[00:20:50.420]that want to know what's eating their plants and they want to spray for that.
[00:20:53.620]So if you are listening and you see this, don't spray and tell people that bees are nesting.
[00:21:00.900]They're using these broadleaf plants as nesting material and they're solitary bees. They just want
[00:21:05.780]to make these cells. These are from my bee hotel. I use cardboard straws or parchment paper just to
[00:21:17.940]be able to see some of them. They overwinter as larvae in these delicate cells. So not water
[00:21:23.540]proof. But they have a longer season that I can watch. So from June to September. And one of those
[00:21:30.260]tubes I think the average may be seven to nine cells in there. But it's important also to know
[00:21:38.100]that the depth of those cells or those tunnels really matter. Because with the leaf cutter bee,
[00:21:45.380]she is able to determine the sex of her offspring. So she puts the females at the back of the the
[00:21:53.460]tunnel. So if the tunnel is not long enough, there's not going to be enough of the the sex
[00:21:58.900]ratio to sustain a population. So you want to make sure it's long enough, which is one of the
[00:22:03.540]problems with some of those commercial or store-bought bee hotels is that the, you know,
[00:22:09.300]the diameters are not going to be right, especially according to the depth of the, you know, of the
[00:22:15.620]of the block or the the tubes. But we want to, you know, if you want to provide these existing cavities
[00:22:23.380]then you want to do it right. Because it's important to know that, you know, we are doing
[00:22:29.060]these things for the bees but we also have to maintain. We maintain our cars and our homes and
[00:22:33.780]we have to put a little work into what we're putting out there for them. So when it comes to
[00:22:41.540]building a bee hotel, you can easily do this and you can do this with a number of materials.
[00:22:48.020]Next slide please, Kate. Yeah, and a number of materials. It could be, you know,
[00:22:53.300]but the more extravagant, maybe the more work it will be. You can put cardboard tubes, you could
[00:22:59.620]put reeds out there, natural products. You can drill holes in logs or wood. And these are, you
[00:23:04.900]know, a variety of hotels that I've seen or habitats out there that are painted. And, you
[00:23:10.980]know, the most important thing, have different size holes. You can have different size or
[00:23:15.780]different types of material. Have those diameters be different but related to the depth. Make
[00:23:23.220]sure you have different size holes. You don't want to drill through completely through the
[00:23:31.140]block. You want it to be, you know, to just drill a certain amount. When you want to put
[00:23:36.280]these out in your garden, you want to make sure it's protected from the worst weather.
[00:23:40.720]You know, from wind, hard rain. You want to mount it. You don't want it swinging. You
[00:23:44.620]want it mounted firmly off the ground. Three to five feet is usually something that works.
[00:23:49.400]You want it to face south or southeast. Somewhere that it's going to get
[00:23:53.140]direct sun. And you don't want it blocked by vegetation. And in the fall, you can install
[00:23:58.900]hardware cloth if you think that woodpeckers or animals are going to get to it. But, you
[00:24:04.680]know, it's not without maintenance. You want to also protect it from the worst weather,
[00:24:08.720]but you can leave it out in some cases in the winter. If you bring it in, you just don't
[00:24:13.260]want it to warm up so that the bees emerge too early. And you want to put it outside
[00:24:17.580]before freezing temperatures. So in this picture here, this is actually my backyard
[00:24:23.060]garden. I've got my pollinator, my certified pollinator garden all over. But this is the
[00:24:28.080]back, the one on the left with Pip, my dog, that's last year's blocks. And then this year
[00:24:35.000]is on the right. And what I've done is drilled new blocks. And the old blocks are in what
[00:24:40.440]I call an emergence box. And it's like a Rubbermaid container and with a couple holes
[00:24:46.000]drilled out. So the bees from last year, when they come out, I want them to emerge, but
[00:24:50.200]I don't want them to nest in the old blocks.
[00:24:52.980]So, to clean, you know, your, your tunnels, you can use a bleach solution you can, you
[00:25:00.220]know, drop air, use air compressor, you can clean them out with pipe cleaners I mean it
[00:25:05.960]can be labor intensive you can put inserts in them with cardboard or parchment paper,
[00:25:10.740]you can rotate the blocks or redrill the holes, I know it sounds like a lot of work, but I'm
[00:25:15.120]going to tell you why. So next slide please. So, whenever there is a high density of any
[00:25:22.900]thing, any organism, there is a higher risk of parasites, disease, and pests, and so we
[00:25:29.980]want to be mindful of that. We want the bees to come in, but we don't want to get them
[00:25:34.300]all sick, right? So things like chalk brood, which is a fungal infection, pollen mites
[00:25:40.160]may infect your house. I get a lot of dermestid beetles if I don't move things around and
[00:25:48.200]if I'm not cleaning things out. And we also need to keep in mind that even though this
[00:25:52.820]is a solitary bee hotel, there are going to be other insects and pests and spiders and
[00:25:57.620]things checking in and we just got to be mindful of that.
[00:26:00.420]you know, look around, make sure you don't have a stinging wasp, like a social wasp there. We also
[00:26:05.890]have some parasitoids because every, you know, most things have a predator that will come and
[00:26:11.470]try to prey on your leafcutter bees. And that happens. There's even that top, the top left
[00:26:17.670]photo, that is a cuckoo bee and it's a leafcutter cuckoo bee. So it looks exactly like a leafcutter
[00:26:23.110]bee, but she doesn't collect pollen. She just lays her eggs by, you know, in the leafcutter bees
[00:26:29.130]holes and steals her pollen. So, you know, that's not very nice, but this is the circle of life,
[00:26:34.570]unfortunately, right? So my last couple slides. So what can you do to help the bees? Well, you know,
[00:26:42.290]you're doing your part now by listening, learning about the bees. Find out what bees are in your
[00:26:47.190]backyard where you live. There are some great books out there. I drive around with my bee books.
[00:26:52.070]That's how weird I am. But you want to feed the bees. So what you are going to hear next week
[00:26:57.970]in our series about how to keep things blooming all year round. You know, reduce pesticide use.
[00:27:05.790]Just think about what you're doing. These are not always, you know, it's not always going to be
[00:27:10.890]worth using any pesticides that are especially broad spectrum that can kill the pest and also
[00:27:17.030]the bees. You want to provide habitat and nesting material. Even if you're not going to want to do
[00:27:22.010]your own hotel, leave some bare soil for those ground nesters. And you know what? Share your
[00:27:26.850]knowledge, which is basically what I do, right? I just talk all the time. The next slide are a
[00:27:32.050]bunch of resources. If you're interested in any of these, let me know. I can tell you that these
[00:27:38.690]are some of my favorite books. And we'll talk, I think, next week about the Nebraska Certified
[00:27:46.230]Pollinator Habitat. So if you're in Nebraska, it's an amazing program, not just because I love
[00:27:52.710]bees, but it started me really interested in
[00:27:56.090]watching bees. And they'll talk about that next week. And that's all I have for you today,
[00:28:03.870]because Kate is going to talk about the butterflies and beyond. And I'm super excited
[00:28:09.510]that you guys are here. That's what my pollinator garden looked like last week.
[00:28:15.550]Thanks, Jodi. So now we're going to move on from bees. And we're going to talk about other non-bee
[00:28:25.830]insects. So I'm going to talk about some of the other non-bee insects. So I'm going to talk about
[00:28:26.070]some of the other non-bee insects. So this is a statistic about kind of the agricultural side
[00:28:30.770]and the pollination services that insects provide. So non-bee insects as pollinators
[00:28:37.190]provide 39% of flower visits in crops worldwide. And when I first read the statistic, I was
[00:28:44.390]actually pretty surprised. I thought that was a high number considering how much we know that
[00:28:50.310]bees do for us. But when we think about this, even though they visit flowers a lot,
[00:28:56.050]these other non-bee insects are a lot less effective at pollination than bees are.
[00:29:01.790]They don't have these specialized pollen baskets. They don't have these specialized branched hairs.
[00:29:08.930]A lot of them, most of them don't provision nests with pollen. So it kind of evens out.
[00:29:16.510]They visit a lot of flowers. They do a lot of flower visiting, but they're also
[00:29:20.150]fairly ineffective pollinators.
[00:29:24.390]And one of the types of pollinators that are really closely related to bees are wasps.
[00:29:29.590]So wasps actually, like I mentioned, they don't provision nests with pollen like bees do.
[00:29:37.170]In fact, they're predators and parasitoids. And they're really important in the ecosystem
[00:29:41.570]because they keep other insect populations kind of in balance as they feed on them.
[00:29:46.890]And that can even include managing pests like pesky caterpillars or other things like that.
[00:29:52.730]So they don't actively collect pollen. They will visit flowers, but they also lack branched hairs.
[00:29:59.170]And we kind of just consider them incidental pollinators. So they just happen to visit one
[00:30:04.030]flower and then go to the other. And we can tell how they're kind of not as efficient as wasps just
[00:30:09.250]by looking at them. So Jodi talked a lot about how the bees are specialized for carrying pollen.
[00:30:16.310]So we see this bee in the top photo that's covered in these dense hairs. It's got this
[00:30:21.870]specialized corbicula or pollen basket right there. And while some wasps can get pretty hairy
[00:30:28.390]and this wasp does have hairs, it's not nearly as efficient as collecting pollen. And where bees
[00:30:34.330]have these really specialized branched hairs, wasp hairs aren't branched. It's just the single
[00:30:40.150]hair that comes out. And so it's, like I said, it's just not quite as efficient as the bees are.
[00:30:46.530]That being said, wasps are super important pollinators. And
[00:30:51.850]in very special circumstances as well. So one of the classic examples of wasp pollination are
[00:31:00.190]fig wasps. So figs are exclusively pollinated by wasps. And figs, if you're unfamiliar with how
[00:31:08.330]fig flowers look, they're actually inside kind of this hollow ball. So it can't just be pollinated
[00:31:15.050]by anything. It needs a really specialized pollinator. And that's where the fig wasp comes in.
[00:31:21.830]A young female fig wasp, when she hatches out inside of a fig fruit, she'll leave the fruit
[00:31:28.170]and search for one of those hollow balls that contains the fig flower. When she finds that,
[00:31:34.710]she'll go through this teeny tiny opening at the base of that fig ball. And it's so small that she
[00:31:40.610]actually rips her wings in the process of entering. And when she gets in there, she's transferring
[00:31:46.250]pollen from that first fig to the second one. So the fig's getting pollinated. And then the
[00:31:51.810]baby, she'll lay her eggs in there and kind of the cycle starts all over again. So if you're a fan
[00:31:57.110]of figs, you should thank a fig wasp. And also closely related to bees and wasps are ants. So
[00:32:05.470]bees, wasps, and ants are all within the same insect order. They're really closely related.
[00:32:10.350]We generally recognize ants as being wingless. There are winged ants. And sometimes there's
[00:32:21.790]for ants. But once again, this is kind of the idea of just the incidental pollination. So ants
[00:32:29.050]are generalist foragers. And they can actually, when they do visit flowers to get nectar,
[00:32:34.590]they'll actually a lot of the times be able to get that nectar without even touching the pollen.
[00:32:39.250]So they're so small and they can just crawl right in there and not touch any of the flower's sexual
[00:32:44.530]organs. So unfortunately, the ant gets a meal, but the flower kind of misses out on that opportunity.
[00:32:49.730]But when ants do
[00:32:51.770]visit flowers, a lot of the times these are going to be the low growing flowers that occur in high
[00:32:57.450]density on the ground, and they are small and brightly colored.
[00:33:02.390]And I just want to mention this, because I get asked about this quite a lot, the association with
[00:33:09.930]ants on peony. And I've heard things like, well, the peony plants need the ants in order to bloom or
[00:33:16.810]the ants are important pollinators of the peony. And that's not that's not the case in this instance.
[00:33:21.750]So they do have this mutualistic relationship. However, it doesn't have anything to do with
[00:33:27.490]pollination. So the flowers provide these extra floral nectaries so that the ants are able to get
[00:33:33.350]nectar without going in and touching those reproductive organs of the flower. And then the
[00:33:37.950]ants in turn provide protection for the plant against maybe some pest species like whiteflies,
[00:33:43.910]scales and things like that. So moving on to an entirely different group of
[00:33:51.730]insects. When it comes to non-bee pollinators, butterflies are typically the most recognizable.
[00:33:58.070]If you ask someone, can you name a pollinator, it usually starts with bee and then butterfly
[00:34:02.390]is going to be the second one that's listed. And that's because they're these big, beautiful
[00:34:07.410]insects that feed on nectar. So a lot of the times, if we see something on the flower,
[00:34:11.990]it's either going to be a bee or a butterfly.
[00:34:15.270]And in Nebraska, we have about 206 species of butterfly. And we generally see them from
[00:34:21.710]May to August for viewing. I know I've seen a lot of swallowtails out right now, which
[00:34:25.930]is fantastic. And butterflies are diurnal, which means that they fly and they're active
[00:34:31.490]during the daytime, which also means that they're going to pollinate flowers that are
[00:34:35.290]open during the day. And they frequent a lot of these large, brightly colored blooms. Kind
[00:34:41.790]of a fun fact, because Jodi talked about bees, that bees can't see the color red, but butterflies
[00:34:46.890]can. So something good for the butterflies, I guess.
[00:34:51.690]And butterflies are also perching feeders, so they need to be at rest when they're feeding.
[00:34:55.690]So this means that a lot of the times they're going to be favoring blooms that have a labellum,
[00:35:00.970]or kind of a landing platform. And they use this long straw that we call a proboscis to drink from,
[00:35:07.050]as you can kind of see here in this little video. So the butterflies usually have their mouth part
[00:35:11.770]kind of wound up in a coil underneath their head, but when they're feeding,
[00:35:16.010]they kind of use this long straw. And another fun fact about butterflies is that they can
[00:35:21.670]taste with their feet, and they do this in order to find host plants, but because while butterflies
[00:35:26.870]can visit a large variety of bloom, more often than not their immature stage or their caterpillars
[00:35:33.750]require very specific host plants. And just like bees and wasps and ants,
[00:35:40.390]butterflies also go through this complete metamorphosis life cycle, which means they
[00:35:45.590]have the four stages. They have eggs, which are typically laid on the underside of leaves,
[00:35:51.650]and out of the eggs hatches a larva, or as we call them caterpillars, which feed on host plants.
[00:35:57.890]So they'll feed on foliage and they'll pupate into a chrysalis. A lot of the times we'll find
[00:36:03.970]chrysalis off of the host plant. I know I found monarch chrysalis kind of attached to my garage
[00:36:11.250]one time, which was weird. You can find them anywhere. And then out of the chrysalis comes
[00:36:17.810]an adult. And this is kind of the classic example of the monarch butterfly.
[00:36:21.630]And their life cycle is really important because when we think about trying to attract butterflies
[00:36:27.850]to our landscapes and kind of foster this area for pollinators, it's important to remember
[00:36:34.270]that if you want to keep butterflies in your landscape, more often than not you're going
[00:36:38.010]to have to have food for their immature stage as well. And sometimes that immature stage
[00:36:44.030]can also be considered a pest in certain landscapes. So the classic example of butterflies that
[00:36:51.610]kind of everyone's crazy about because their numbers have been in decline and we're trying
[00:36:55.810]to build them back up is the monarch butterfly. So the host plant of the monarch butterfly
[00:37:01.170]is milkweed. It's one of the few that actually feed on milkweed because it's got that milky
[00:37:09.890]sap that's actually kind of poisonous for a lot of other insects and animals. And monarchs
[00:37:14.970]are really interesting because they migrate all the way from Mexico northwards and lay
[00:37:20.090]their eggs along the way.
[00:37:21.590]And those eggs that are laid are the butterflies that we end up seeing here in Nebraska kind
[00:37:27.350]of in the middle of their migration season. Other moths, or not moths, excuse me, other
[00:37:35.210]butterflies that are kind of common around here are the sulfur butterflies. There's many
[00:37:41.190]different species of sulfur. Some call them whites. There's clouded sulfurs. There's oranges.
[00:37:46.910]And this particular example, this is a cabbage white butterfly. So we see a lot of these
[00:37:51.570]around gardens, maybe visiting flowers, but there's also a reason that they're around gardens.
[00:37:56.330]And that's because this is one of those cases where we really see the adults and wow, they're
[00:38:02.350]beautiful. They're pollinators. But the caterpillar of this is called the imported cabbage worm.
[00:38:08.170]And it is a pest. It's a pest of plants in the family or yeah, in the family brassica.
[00:38:14.890]So it's going to eat things like mustards, radishes, broccoli, and things like that. So more often
[00:38:21.550]than not, we're not going to want to attract this to like a vegetable garden, for example.
[00:38:26.990]Other butterflies in this sulfur family, like clouded sulfurs and oranges, will feed on legumes
[00:38:34.870]as well. And then the other common butterfly that we're seeing right now, as I mentioned,
[00:38:40.830]are the swallowtails. And so more often than not, I hear a lot of people that have like
[00:38:48.170]dill or parsley in their garden, and it gets overused.
[00:38:51.530]Overrun with caterpillars, because these guys are pretty hungry. So the host plants for the
[00:38:58.430]eastern black swallowtail are herbs that are in the carrot family. But we also have other species
[00:39:04.170]of swallowtail here, such as the zebra swallowtail, which is kind of a more white in color with really
[00:39:10.170]long tails on the hind wing that we can see here. Their host plant is the pawpaw tree, for example.
[00:39:17.050]So it's kind of really important to, if you want to attract butterflies to your landscape,
[00:39:21.510]to kind of diversify the host plant for the larvae.
[00:39:25.270]So, and closely related to butterflies, we also have moths that can be important pollinators as well.
[00:39:33.330]So unlike butterflies, most species of moth are crepuscular or nocturnal in nature.
[00:39:40.030]That means that they fly and they're active either during the twilight hours or at night.
[00:39:45.230]And because of that, they prefer flowers that are nocturnal bloomers,
[00:39:51.490]that are heavily fragrant, like evening primrose, blooming jasmine, that are white or pale colored.
[00:40:00.830]And that's because it reflects the moonlight really well.
[00:40:03.830]And more often than not, they visit flowers that are kind of smaller in size.
[00:40:08.130]So this picture on the left is actually an example of a day flying moth.
[00:40:12.270]It's the hummingbird clearwing moth, and it's kind of developed mimicry
[00:40:16.270]that's similar to a bee with its coloration and the clearness of its wings. And you can also see that
[00:40:21.470]unlike butterflies, this moth in particular, it doesn't need to be at rest while it's feeding.
[00:40:26.470]So when we think about moth pollination, there is a technical term for that called phalaenophyllae.
[00:40:33.470]And while other insects like bees are super important for most pollination services,
[00:40:41.470]there are several different species of plants that require moth pollination and have these interactions.
[00:40:47.470]So there are many species of orchids.
[00:40:51.450]That require moth for pollination.
[00:40:55.450]Other plants that get pollinated by moths include pinks and carnations.
[00:41:01.450]And we can kind of see here how long this plant is right there.
[00:41:04.450]So we think about the tongue of the moth or the proboscis that's really long.
[00:41:08.450]So it's able to get all the way down there.
[00:41:11.450]Other plants that are frequented by moths are four o'clocks, evening primrose, as I mentioned, amaryllis, and nightshades as well.
[00:41:21.430]And at the moth side of that thing, there's many different moths that provide pollination services.
[00:41:26.430]So this noctuity family, which has a lot of different species of moth that can pollinate, which makes sense because it's a very large and diverse family of moths.
[00:41:37.430]But it's also interesting because once again, we're trying to find that balance between pollinator and pest.
[00:41:44.430]And there's a lot of species of noctuid moths that are like cutworms or armyworms, which can be pests.
[00:41:51.410]But they can also be agricultural landscapes or turf pests as well.
[00:41:56.410]So that second large family of pollinators includes the hawk or the sphinx moths, they're attracted to blooms. So here's those pinks, again, that have like those deeply sequestered nectar that's accessible only to them or possibly hummingbirds.
[00:42:12.410]In fact, these guys are sometimes mistaken for hummingbird that's given their name hummingbird hawk moths as well.
[00:42:21.390]But once again, when we think back to providing food for that larval form, the larvae of these guys are commonly called hornworms, which if you have, for example, if you've tried growing tomatoes outside, tomato hornworms can also be considered a pest as well.
[00:42:41.390]And then one of the really cool examples of moth pollination is the yucca moth. So yuccas are exclusively pollinated from moths and they do it in
[00:42:51.370]kind of a cool fashion. So this gravid female yucca moth, she's ready to lay her eggs. She visits one flower and she has these really specialized mouth parts that allow her to pick up pollen and kind of form it into this big pollen ball, big for the size, the small size of this moth, of course. But she uses these special mouth parts to carry this pollen ball to a different yucca plant. And once she gets in there, she climbs into this new flower, and she deposits her eggs kind of at the base of the
[00:43:21.350]ovary. And after she deposits her eggs, she then carries that big ball of pollen and deposits
[00:43:27.830]it into the stigma of the flower, thus cross-pollinating. So once the yucca is pollinated, it's going
[00:43:35.210]to start producing seeds. And the yucca produces a lot of seeds, and it needs to because the
[00:43:41.470]moth caterpillars will hatch and feed on the seeds. So it needs to produce more than it
[00:43:45.730]actually needs. And so it's kind of this beautiful mutualistic relationship because the yucca
[00:43:51.330]requires the moth to get pollinated, and the moth requires the yucca in order to complete
[00:43:58.350]its life cycle as a food source. So then the next group of insects that can be pollinators
[00:44:08.530]as well, they often get a bad rap, are flies. So flies, kind of similar to ants, are kind
[00:44:16.370]of just these general foragers. Flies are pretty diverse. They can take a little bit
[00:44:21.310]of food, a lot of depending on the species, they utilize a lot of different food resources.
[00:44:26.210]They do not provision nests like bees would do with pollen or wasps would do with prey.
[00:44:33.730]But once again, if you like chocolate, you know, think a fly. They're essential pollinators
[00:44:39.810]of the cocoa tree and it's called the tiny chocolate midge, which I think is a super
[00:44:44.450]cute name for a fly. So if you like chocolate, think the tiny chocolate midge. And even some
[00:44:51.290]adapted these really putrid smelling blooms in order to attract certain flies. So if you come
[00:44:56.690]across a flower that just kind of smells rancid, that's probably why it's waiting for a fly to come
[00:45:02.770]pollinate it. And this is a really great photo from Jodi. And this is actually a mosquito that's
[00:45:10.410]drinking nectar. So when we think mosquitoes, we don't, we generally don't think them as beneficial
[00:45:16.110]pollinators. And more often, you know, they're probably not doing a whole lot of pollination. So
[00:45:21.270]they're not doing a whole lot of pollination. So they're not doing a whole lot of pollination. So
[00:45:24.850]males and females will drink nectar. And the females take blood meals when they need to lay
[00:45:30.690]their eggs. And so just the other day, I had a work colleague really excited to show me all of
[00:45:38.650]her insect pictures. She's super fantastic at photography. And then she shows me this one and
[00:45:43.450]says, look at this cool bee I took a picture of. And in fact, this isn't a bee, it's a fly. So I'm
[00:45:51.250]going to tell you the difference. How can you tell between a bee and a fly? I'll give you five
[00:45:58.390]seconds, which isn't a lot of time. But if you're able to get, like, that perfect picture, you know,
[00:46:04.950]it's resting, it's not in flight, you can tell by just counting the number of wings on the insect.
[00:46:11.650]So flies have two wings or one pair, as we can see here, because this is a flower fly. And bees and
[00:46:21.230]they're going to have four wings, so they're going to have two pairs. And sometimes you can tell
[00:46:26.350]there's a group of flies that they have these kind of really short antennae with a single hair
[00:46:31.930]coming across, so that's kind of a dead giveaway too. But in fact, there are a lot of different
[00:46:36.410]species of flies that are going to mimic these too. And we can kind of see some here. So this
[00:46:43.650]left picture is a picture of a hornet fly, which we assume is mimicking a wasp. Here's another flower
[00:46:51.210]in the middle. And then this one on the right is named a bee fly. And you can kind of see its
[00:46:57.110]tongue sticking out as it tries to drink from milkweed. Jodi's smiling over there because we
[00:47:01.970]were gushing over how cute this little bee fly is earlier. He's pretty adorable with his little legs
[00:47:06.650]sticking out. Yep. And then we have the not so pretty flies too, but they still, you know,
[00:47:13.250]visit flowers and they take nectar meals. So these are tacnid flies. Sometimes people will find them
[00:47:19.210]in their homes. Most of the time, it's kind of just
[00:47:21.190]incidental. They just flew in. But yeah, so flies are another group that we can associate with
[00:47:27.650]pollination. And then this last group I'm going to talk about are beetles. So beetles are arguably
[00:47:37.430]the most diverse organisms in the world. I say arguably because I said this on a presentation
[00:47:43.530]last week and I had some bee and wasp people in the audience who begged to differ about that
[00:47:49.610]statement because it might be a little bit different. But I said, yeah, so beetles are
[00:47:51.170]the most diverse. Who knows? Science is always changing. But they're super diverse organisms.
[00:47:57.070]And I think the saying is that one in every four animals is a species of beetle. And they're also
[00:48:05.450]one of the first insect pollinators on prehistoric plants. And we know that through fossil records of
[00:48:11.330]finding beetles on flowers as well. And beetles are also often called mess and soil pollinators
[00:48:21.150]Jodi coined earlier, with poop and pollinate is what they do. So a lot of the time some
[00:48:28.790]beetles will actually chew through the petals in order to get to the inside of the flower.
[00:48:36.110]And then along the way, they're going to defecate or leave grass behind. So they leave the flower
[00:48:41.270]looking in a lot rougher shape than what it started with. But they're still providing
[00:48:45.530]this pollination service. And there's a lot of different beetle friendly blooms
[00:48:51.130]out there. So we see them on these large solitary flowers. So magnolias and pond lilies are
[00:48:58.550]really highly associated with beetle pollination. And then on the other end of that spectrum,
[00:49:04.370]we can find them on clusters of small flowers like goldenrods or spheria, as well as things
[00:49:10.490]like yarrow, sunflower, winter sweet, and spicebush.
[00:49:16.550]And these are kind of the most common beetles, I would say, at least I've seen on flowers.
[00:49:21.110]So these are soldier beetles, and as you can see from Jodi's photos, she's found them on
[00:49:24.850]a variety of different flower species.
[00:49:27.590]And we see them a lot taking pollen as a meal as adults.
[00:49:33.370]And kind of the fun science entomologist fact is soldier beetles are in the family Cantharidae,
[00:49:40.910]and the scientific term for beetle pollination is Cantharophyllae, which kind of just shows
[00:49:48.670]how closely related these beetles are.
[00:49:51.090]Are to visiting flowers and to pollination.
[00:49:55.510]We can see other beetles on flowers, so these are flower longhorn beetles, and you can see
[00:50:00.250]how much pollen is stuck to these guys as well.
[00:50:05.550]There's a wedge-shaped beetle.
[00:50:08.570]Blister beetles are these black ones in this photo, but we also once again we have that
[00:50:12.650]soldier beetle that seems to keep popping up in a lot of these.
[00:50:16.750]So here's the hairy flower beetle on some flowers.
[00:50:21.070]Locust borer, which is a pest of trees, but we also once again, we're seeing these soldier
[00:50:27.690]beetles and then a little cucumber beetle hiding out here.
[00:50:31.010]So although a lot of these organisms are not nearly as important as bees, they still visit
[00:50:42.130]flowers and they're really important in that flower and insect pollination relationship.
[00:50:49.750]And I just wanted to throw this slide in.
[00:50:51.050]Here is just because you see a beetle on the on a flower does not mean it's providing the
[00:50:55.330]flower any any any service.
[00:50:59.790]So these are the scorn of a lot of landscapes, the Japanese beetle.
[00:51:04.630]And here we can see it eating the petals of a marigold flower.
[00:51:09.590]And so we have all sorts of these different insects.
[00:51:12.650]We went over bees, butterflies, and I think we're doing pretty good on time.
[00:51:17.590]We might be able to answer a couple of questions.
[00:51:21.030]Just wanted to remind everyone that there is one more webinar next week on the 18th
[00:51:26.610]at 6:30, where Mary Jane and Kelly are going to be talking about pollinator-friendly blooms
[00:51:31.570]for all seasons.
[00:51:33.050]We hope you can join us, and if we have any extra questions, we're happy to answer them.
[00:51:39.010]Thank you all for joining us tonight.
[00:51:51.010]We'll see you next time.
[00:51:56.830]Thank you
[00:51:57.330]Thank you
[00:51:57.830]Thank you

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GROBigRed - Bees, Butterflies, and Beyond

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