Beginners Guide to Pollinators

The Amazon edition of Beginners Guide to Pollinators and Other Flower Visitors came out just in time for Pollinator Week, 2015.

Sample pages below:

Death among the flowers

Pollinators have such a glamorous job. They fly from flower to flower collecting golden pollen and sweet, delicious nectar. What could be better? Indeed it is a wonderful job; but just as there are snakes in paradise, there are hidden dangers among the lovely flowers. Life can be very cruel in the garden.

Ambush bugs have a very well deserved name. They wait in hiding among the flowers. Sometimes they are very hard to spot because they hide among the petals, only their alert eyes and antennae can be seen. Their sharp beaks, loaded with poison at the ready and their powerful front legs prepared to snap with vise like action.

Ambush bug, Phymata

One sunny day I was walking in the garden enjoying the comings and goings of diligent pollinators when I spotted this little killer, a jagged ambush bug. One look at its contours renders the name self explanatory. Perhaps the jagged shape makes it hard to swallow by would be predators. It also must help on disguising its appearance.

I snapped a couple of pictures and was about to move on when I saw a bumble bee land on the flower. The next few photos were taken less than a minute later and show the fate of the unfortunate bumble bee. Had it been more careful it would have escaped his fate. The amazing thing is that there was no struggle. The venom of the ambush bug must be so powerful and fast acting that it paralyzes a victim twice the size of the killer instantly.

Male two-spotted bumble bee, Bombus bimaculatus

Being a pollinator can be a hard life. But that is the way it is for everybody out there, including the killers.

Indeed, life and death go hand in hand in the garden.
List of articles

© Beatriz Moisset. 2012

Floral Emissaries

The raising sun turns the meadow into multicolored blankets of sparkling dewdrops. One flower stretches its petals lazily; it is still too early. She sets the table with a scented tablecloth, arranges bowls brimming with nectar; the anthers full of pollen have burst open exposing their golden dusty treasure and she wonders: Will the visitors come? Sadly, the weather turns bitter and windy and the sun finally refuses altogether to come from behind the clouds; wrong weather for winged visitors.

The next morning the wind is gone; the sun begins to warm the land and melt the dew drops so our flower feels her hopes rise. She is not alone; many others show their charms letting their aroma float in the breeze with the same hope of attracting guests. Better this way, so the callers can carry love messages between them.

The sun keeps climbing and finally a buzzing sound announces the arrival of one of the anxiously awaited visitors. A shiny metallic green bee stops briefly at a nearby blossom and then comes to her. Wisely, she has painted darker lines that point the way to the hidden nectar; thus the guest has no trouble finding it and drinks it avidly and briefly. The cunning flower has prepared just enough nectar to attract a visitor, but not so much that the bee would become satiated and return home without further visits. The guest brushes accidentally against the anthers and some pollen sticks to its hairy body. This is no accident; the flower has placed things just right where she wants them; now her pollen will travel to other flowers.

A parade of winged travelers follows on the next few days. Not all of them are shiny bees, there are others: fuzzy bumblebees, flower flies, a few flashy butterflies and moths and even a beetle.

Finally the pollen is all gone and the anthers begin to wilt. But the flower isn’t done yet because deep inside the ovary, at the very heart of the blossom, sit the future seeds. Now the ovary begins to bulge and its tip at the end of a little tube, the stigma, glistens with a sticky substance meant to receive the pollen from other flowers, the love messages brought unwittingly by the visitors. So the flower keeps inviting guests with its nectar and hoping that they come loaded with other pollens and ready to leave some of their cargo behind. Pretty soon the grains that were left on the stigma will begin to make their way toward the carefully sheltered future seeds. Only now is the flower satisfied of a mission accomplished and only now she allows the colors to fade and the scent to disappear; the petals shrivel and will soon fall to the ground.

Only the ovary remains with its seeds and with all the promises of generations to come. Later on it will become a juicy berry that will attract another kind of visitors, hungry birds and other small animals; they will carry the seeds, adventurous explorers, to farther meadows, to a new life away from the mother plant. But, that is another story.



List of articles

© Beatriz Moisset. 2012

Of Bees and Honey. What is Honey for?

Solitary bee, halictid or sweat bee, gathering food for her babies

In the beginning there were wasps, no bees at all. Wasps trapped bugs and used them to feed their babies, who grew strong and healthy in that rich protein diet. Many adult wasps also visited flowers and fed on nectar, a rich fuel that gave them enough energy to do all that flying needed to hunt their prey.

Once upon a time, some wasps discovered that the pollen they had accidentally picked up and carried back home on their bodies turned out to be just as nutritious as their prey. So they switched to pollen and gave up chasing after bugs. One advantage of pollen is that it doesn’t run away or fight back.

They became hairier and developed baskets to pick up and carry pollen home, thus a new creature was born, different enough from wasps to belong in a different category: a vegetarian wasp, the mother of all bees. Notice that I haven't mentioned honey yet. That came later. In those days all bees were solitary and short lived. The adults usually died at the end of the summer season. Only the next generation lived through the winter, feeding on its pollen reserves and sleeping quietly in a safe and secluded place, perhaps wrapped into some sort of cocoon.

Honey bee collecting pollen and nectar for the colony or hive, to feed her sisters and queen and store reserves for the winter

Finally some bees developed societies that lasted several years and had queens and workers and drones, all living together in a large colony. In order to survive the winter they needed to store supplies, mostly nectar (to keep burning fuel through the winter and stay warm) and also some pollen. But the nectar straight from the flower is very watery and would use too much space, so they developed techniques to get rid of most of the water. They spit the nectar out in a big bubble and swallow it back again and again until it becomes concentrated through evaporation until it can be stored in cells. In the process they also add some preservatives and fungicides to increase the shelf life of this precious commodity. Yes, that is what honey is; maybe you lost your appetite for it. But, wait, it gets worse, sometimes when there is a shortage of nectar, bees collect secretions from aphids, you may call it aphid poop, and use it to make honey.

Only social bees make any significant amount of honey. The stored supplies sustain them through the winter, when there is no other food available. The domestic bee and a few relatives from Asia belong to the social category as do several kinds of stingless bees from Central America and tropical South America. Bumblebees are also social, although they never build colonies as large as those of honey bees. They live for a few months and make some honey but not much. They store their golden treasure in little clay pots in their underground nests. Local people don't hesitate to eat this honey when they find it.

Interestingly, several types of wasps from Central and South America form colonies or hives that last longer than a year. They also make honey, but this is very unusual for a wasp. Their paper nests resemble those of hornets and the honey is hard to remove from the combs. You just pop up a piece of wasp nest in your mouth and chew until all the honey is gone. Then you spit up the wad of paper. I know it; I have done it. The honey is delicious and worth the minor paper-chewing inconvenience.

Oh, yes! Some ants make honey and have a very peculiar way of storing it. Some members of the colony, called "repletes," eat enormous amounts of honey, fed to them by their sisters, until their bellies are perhaps ten times larger than normal. They hang from the ceilings of store chambers inside the anthill and serve as "honey pots" always ready to vomit and pass some of this material to their nest mates. Honey ants are found on dry regions of several continents, including the American Southwest. The natives relish this sweet treat.

List of articles

© Beatriz Moisset. 2012

A Busy Pollinator and a Relaxed One

An industrious little bee gathering food for her babies and pollinating flowers along the way. It methodically collects pollen without missing any and then promptly flies to the next flower.



The bee is very industrious and visits many flowers in a very short time. The flower fly, on the other hand, takes its precious time gobbling up pollen, so it visits fewer flowers overall.

BUMBLEBEES. Are Some Bumblebees Going the Way of the Dodo?

Who doesn't like a bumblebee? With their plump, fuzzy bodies and striking black and yellow or black and white stripes they easily capture people's hearts, especially when they are seen buzzing around from flower to flower.

What most people don't know is that some species of bumblebees are in decline. We have heard about the plight of its relative, the domestic honey bee; but haven't paid much attention to the situation of this wild cousin. Why should we care? It isn't just because bumblebees are charismatic, but also, and more importantly, because they play key roles in certain ecosystems. So far, we know of only a few species that are showing a reduction in numbers, both in North America and in Europe. It isn't as if all the species of bumblebees were going extinct overnight; fortunately some species are doing well, even in unexpected places such as suburban gardens. But, perhaps we should start paying attention to what is happening now rather than when it is too late. Besides, it is possible that many other species of wild bees are suffering similar declines in their numbers and we have no way to estimate what is happening because we know so little about them.

Here are some of the things that bumblebees do: they pollinate 15% of our food crops, worth about 3 billion dollars; they also pollinate countless wild flowers. Wildflowers are important not just for their beauty, but also for the seeds and berries that they produce. They become food for many species of wildlife, from birds and small rodents to large animals such as bears. Birds don't know what percentage of their food crops are pollinated by bumblebees, but it is possible that for some species is closer to 90% than to 15%. If we are not worried about our own food, we should worry about all the many species of birds and other wildlife that may be suffering because of a reduction on the numbers of wild bumblebees.

Goldfinches and many others owe their food to hard working pollinators such as bumblebees.
List of articles
© Beatriz Moisset. 2010

FLOWER FLIES. Very Good Friends of the Gardener

There are some little flies that visit flowers with great frequency. Naturally, they are called flower flies; although the British prefer the name "hover flies", which describes their behavior very accurately. They are very numerous in the garden; but if you dislike house flies you don't need to worry about flower flies; they are rather pretty. You probably didn't notice their presence thinking that they were bees, rather than flies.They are excellent impersonators of stinging insects such as bees and wasps and they probably fool hungry birds into thinking that they may get stung but these little "bees". This strategy seems to work very well for them, so they can go feeding on flowers unmolested by these winged predators.

Sphaerophoria

In their visits to flowers they accomplish some pollination. They may not be as efficient as bees, but their sheer abundance makes them important pollinators of wild flowers. But there is something else that these flies do that makes them very welcome in the garden: The larvae of some of them feed on aphids.


This is such an important task that they deserve more attention than they get from plant lovers. We don't appreciate them enough.

National Pollinator Week

Pollinators are responsible for one third of the food we eat. Most fruits and vegetables have to be pollinated so that they can produce seeds. Also coffee, tea and chocolate need the services of pollinators.

We are so dependent on pollinators that we celebrate them once a year in National Pollinator Week, the last week of June.

© Beatriz Moisset