Texas Bee Watchers

Bees and other insects in your garden

 

I found an interesting and entertaining webcast by Dr. Eric Grissell, the author of Insects and Gardens: In Pursuit of a Garden Ecology.  Skip through the first 5 minutes of an overlong introduction by someone from the Library of Congress, and you will be rewarded with Dr. Grissell explaining why insect and plant diversity in your garden is a good thing. The webcast lasts about 40 minutes, but I found him to be an engaging speaker. He's also a professional Bee Watcher.

The information in this webcast will help you understand why I have you plant a diversity of plants in your Bee Garden.  

Solpugids?

Apparently a Solpugid is a type of spider, but I'm always going to think of doughnuts and ladybugs when I hear the term. Kristie Reddick and Jessica Honaker, former TAMU entomology students and the brains behind Solpugid Productions make some really fun bug videos. Take a look. I know you'll love 'em. 

They've also partnered up with the Department of Entomology at TAMU to produce a regular podcast and they have an interesting podcast on tracking native bees. Check it out.

Bugging Bees Podcast from Solpugid Productions

What's Inside that Bee Nest Box?

If you've wanted to see the inside construction of solitary bee nests (or solitary wasp nests) a group called Resonating Bodies in Toronto Canada has made a little film showing the inside of the tube.  It's pretty interesting to see Leaf-Cutter bees and Orchard Mason bees "holed" up in their nest in the Pink Condo.

The Pink Condo Bee Nest Blocks 

If you are handy with tools, you might try building one of these. Here are links to two articles that describe the (rather complicated) process.  I'm betting one of you would be able to simplify the observation nest box somewhat. Check out the post on the Logan BeeMail Shelter for a simpler modification of the nest Block Boxes described below.

A Paper describing (with photos) the viewable nest box

Complete directions for building the viewable nest box

Catching Bees

If you want to get a close-up view of the native bees visiting your plants, you are going to have to catch them. Robert Delph of the Colorado Plateau Museum of Arthropod Diversity in Flagstaff, Arizona has made a fantastic set of videos available on the internet to show you how. 

Robert shows you various ways to catch bees and other insects and, if you are interested, he also shows how to pin and label your collection. Some of you may also be interested to know Robert is the co-designer and builder of my DCBCD (Delph-Cobb Bug Collecting Device) seen below. The man's got talent.

  

The Little Carpenter Bee (Ceratina)

           

 
 

If you have watched native bees at all, you have seen this little bee–even if you didn’t know the genus. Many days, this bee has been the most common bee I’ve seen. When flying, it reminds me a bit of a fat medium-sized ant. Three characteristics give the identity of this bee away; they are small, about the size of a plumped-up rice grain; they have a bright yellow marking on their face; and, they are shiny, metallic, and don’t have a lot of hairs.

Many other bees are small, but few have this distinctive metallic-greenish coloring.

The Great Sunflower Project has a nice summary of the characteristics of this bee along with a photo.

Sam Droege, a Biologist at USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, has made a wonderful, easy-to-understand slide presentation on native bees. With Sam's permission, I have linked to it on this site.  Just click on Bees on the Navigation bar at the top and scroll down to the Guide to the Apidae Part 1. The Ceratina are on slide 30. Here's a You Tube video of a Ceratina entering a hollow stem. This video was shot by Dr. Kevin Matteson of The Great Pollinator Project (www.greatpollinatorproject.org).