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Bees and wasps in our garden |
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Bzzzzzz....
Already in early spring, bumblebees help bring the garden alive. By mid-summer,
the garden is abuzz with bees, bumblebees, flies, and wasps of all shapes, colors, and
sizes. Since I don't know which sting and which don't, I tend to keep my
distance, but I've captured some of the most interesting ones on digital film.
Bees
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Leaf-cutter bees use pieces of leaves (in this case, from an empress tree)
to build their nests. This is most likely a female Megachile brevis,
a widely distributed species.
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Bumblebees are ubiquitous, and welcome, visitors to our garden. They are there
in early spring for the first flowers, and just keep on going through the season.
One chilly mid-summer morning, we found this cute little guy snoozing on a
morning glory leaf. Sweet dreams...
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This honeybee (Apis mellifera) was taking a well-deserved rest hiding in
the lawn.
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Wasps
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Amazing, the creatures you find when you start looking. I had never heard of
ichneumons until a few months ago, let alone spotted one, even though, as the pictures
show, they can be quite colorful. Ichneumons are a very large group of insects,
who prey on other insects to feed their larvae. The two photos below are of the
same female. The one at right, clearly a different species, is a male.
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Spider wasps are usually seen rummaging through debris at ground level, in search
of the spiders they paralyze as food for their larvae, but this one (Calicurgus hyalinatus)
was flying around some garden foliage.
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Apparently, the great golden digger wasp (Sphex ichneumoneus) only
flies a few weeks out of the year in these Northern reaches of its territory
- so perhaps I should feel lucky he chose a flower in our garden to sit down
on. I was just happy he didn't sit down on me... Both this year and last year,
we first spotted it around mid-July, and both times it was enjoying our sea
hollies.
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This fella looked like he was a bit injured, and was crawling around near our
pond. I have it from a good source that this is a grass-carrier wasp
(Isodontia apicalis), recognizable by the silver face and the white hairs
on its midsection.
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Handsome brown paper wasps (Polistes sp.) help themselves to some
honeydew left by aphids on our paulownia tree. Even though the one above looks
really ticked off, they're not particularly agressive.
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This is a yellowjacket paper wasp (Polistes dominulus), which looks
somewhat similar to the yellowjackets often seen buzzing around trashcans, but
is not closely related. Introduced from Eurasia in the 1980s, it has colonized
most of the U.S. by now. They can be agressive if their nest is threatened,
but are perfectly peaceful buzzing through the garden in search of insect prey.
The one shown here is a male, as evidenced by his yellow face and hooked
antennae.
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Another black wasp, this one with a shiny metallic-blue rear end. A blue
mud dauber (Chalybion californicum), seemed more agressive than most
wasps I encounter - so I didn't get too close with the camera.
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Sawflies
Another group of members of the hymenoptera, the order that includes bees and
wasps, are the sawflies. I see more of their larvae (a few of which you can see
on the crawlers page) than adults, but here's one:
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I could see this argid sawfly (argidae family) from a ways away, gorging
himself on coriander flowers. The combination of the shiny black wings and the
red body contrasted strikingly with the white flowers.
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Visitors to this page have left the following comments| David | May 18, 2008 | About two years ago in the summer of 2006, I was stung by a large black wasp just below my left knee. The wound got swollen and turned almost a dark purplish-red color for several weeks. It healed shortly thereafter. I couldn't see it very well since it was nighttime and, to me, it looked black. What kind of wasp could it have been? Any information would be helpful. Thanks. |
| J_Red | Sep 24, 2005 | which ones are small and brown?
Lots of 'm. Take a look at the guide at bugguide.net for starters. |
| Holly Tashian | Jun 26, 2006 | We seem to have a problem with some sort of bee or wasp that is nesting under our back porch. They have strung 4 of us, in the same place on the back of the leg near the ankle, for no apparent reason. They are fast and black. I can't seem to figure out what these aggresive critters are, or how to get rid of them. Any help would be very welcome.
Holly
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| Linda | Dec 17, 2006 | Until the Eryngium planum bloomed, I had never before seen a golden digger wasp, and, once again, here, I find it on one of your web pages.....I just love looking to see what other people have in thier gardens. I have a lot of the paper wasps and don't mind them cause they help keep the aphid population in check. |
| Taylor | Aug 09, 2007 | I love the way u took these photos I'm 11 and I think this is Fasanating! ( I spelled it wrong i know)
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| Amanda v.V. | May 08, 2008 | Amazing photos. With my camera it's all blurry when I take a close-up shot. What sort of camera do you use? (You don't have to answer that question. I would answer Holly's problem first!)
All of the insect photos were taken with my Canon A70 and A95 cameras. Point-and-shoot, but good macro ability. I've not yet tried to work close-up with my new digital SLR yet... |
| Tim McMahon | Jul 19, 2008 | Cool page |
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Last modified:
July 19, 2005
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