Walking around experiencing the large banks of flowers while listening to the surrounding bird calls is a wonderful experience. Ted raises and sells native plants for home gardens and also restoration projects. His nursery is a feast for bees and other insects. This trip the sun was out, the flowers were in full bloom, and the insects were active, so I decided to see how many kinds of bees I could spot. Unfortunately the Bumble bees were most uncooperative so I missed what I think was a Bombus nevadensis / Nevada Bumble bee and what may have been a Bombus vagans / Half-black Bumble bee. Even the one that looked mostly like a Bombus bifarius seems like an iffy call because her abdomen has a division of black down the center...
The most interesting thing was to see all the red beetles, several in mating pairs, all over the Showy Milkweed. According to the identifiers here in iNaturalist those are Milkweed Borrers, Tetraopes femoratus.
There was a Honey bee with her leg caught in a milkweed flower's trap, which I have recently been reading about. Apparently many an insect dies if it cannot remove it's leg from the flower's clutches.
I brought home 60 plants to add to our yard. Each year we add a little more variety and any native plants I purchase always come from Derby Canyon Natives.
Looks like a ring of bristly hairs circle thorax. Larger bee, roughly Honey bee sized, but more robust. Dark green-black. On Blanket Flower/Gaillardia.
Tiny dark bee, can just see pair of vertical marks on face in one photo. On Monardella odoratissima / Coyote mint.
Red beetles with long serrate antenna, some small dark spots on elytra.
This Honey bee seemed to have caught her leg or claw in this Showy Milkweed flower. She was hanging by her back leg at one point though I missed that with the camera. Seems to be some pollonia on her as well.
Bee, with fovea on face near eyes, broken stripe at top of abdomen (T2 i think). On Blanketflower / Gaillardia.
Cannot see face on this specimen, but she matches the other Andrena that I posted just before this one, which does show it. On Erigeron linearis /
line-leaved daisy.
Robust dark green-black bee, with bristly hairs around thorax. On Heterotheca villosa / hairy False goldenaster, Leafy goldenaster. (Same as previous bee on Gaillardia, to show floral resource.)
Bee with abdomen tilted up, filled with pollen. Has yellow hairs on thorax and white bands on abdomen. On Erigeron filofolius /
Thread-leaf fleabane.
This bee seems to match the others with scopa below her abdomen. On a cactus at Derby Canyon Natives nursery, but I neglected to look at the leaves because the Green-tinged yellow color of the flowers was so interesting.
Smaller Osmia type, dark green, scopa below abdomen, on Sedum.
Same type of bee, or maybe the same one, but there were a lot of them around, with different posture. Posted mostly to show the great pollen collection on her abdomen. On Erigeron speciosus /
Splendid fleabane.
It was in the middle of the Pearly Everlasting so I could not get closer to take a better photo & only saw it once. On Anaphalis margaritacea / Pearly Everlasting.
Same banded bee with fovea and scopa, on Anaphalis margaritacea / Pearly Everlasting.
Round abdomen, with stripes of orange tone and dark brown (or black) on top. On Anaphalis margaritacea /
pearly everlasting.
Grey spider, perfectly matched coloration to concrete block wall where it was resting. Small, around 1/4" across. Pair of large eyes in front, with smaller eyes surrounding it. Covered in hairs.
Has B. bifarius thorax pattern, but there is an additional vertical line through yellow band, so might it be a B. rufocinctus? On Sedum.
Small bee, abdomen is black with thin white bands and scopa underneath. Green eyes, straw yellow hairs on thorax. On Sedum.
Small shiny green metallic bee in Sedum. Seemed to also like looking at flowers inside and below the outer edge.
Light brown with alternating light and dark border around outside edges, on Sedum.
More photos of this bee, to show other flowers it was seen working. Striped abdomen, warm tan/golden tones to hairs on face and abdomen. Scopa underneath abdomen. On Sedum.
Small to medium sized shiny green metallic bees in penstemon. (Need to double check, but might be Penstemon venustus /Venus Pensetemon).
Apis mellifera on Asclepias fascicularis /
narrow-leaf milkweed. There were Honey bees all over the nursery, but they were coming from outside the farm, so feral or there was a hive elsewhere and these bees commute.
Fly, seems to be a wasp mimic, with tan and dark brown stripes, wings colored lengthwise to appear folded. On spreading Apocynum androsaemifolium /
spreading dogbane.
Apocynum androsaemifolium
spreading dogbane
Wasp, about same size as a Yellow jacket, (larger than a Honey bee) with yellow legs, yellow eyes shading to green dorsally, abdomen has curved stripes, with medial separation which are a pale blueish tone that fades into yellow laterally. White hairs over head and thorax.
It was cruising along the lower edge of this bank filled completely with Spreading dogbane, but stopped to fuel up on nectar or pollen. Larger than other sand wasps I have seen in Wenatchee or East Wenatchee, east of Peshastin, Washington.
Male? Has longer antenna, and thick yellow hairs on face.
Yellow and black striped bombus with yellow face and thorax. Seems to have bifarius style interalar, with posterior pointing triangle, but the hair bands on the upper abdomen are also divided medially... On Spiraea douglasii / Douglas' spirea, rose spirea.
Probably not ID-able. Very dull light yellow or faded hairs with shaggy appearance. Interalar is wide, but it is impossible to tell its exact shape. Pale hairs on face, thorax, and abdomen. Female as she is carrying pollen on her corbicula. on Spiraea douglasii / Douglas' spirea, rose spirea
Comentarios
Agregar un comentario