Bee School Day Two: And Another Rare Bee!

When I arrive at The World in A Garden at 9 am, I search for bees sleeping in flowers. This male bumblebee is just waking up.

 Later on, as the sun warms, male bumblebees head for the comfrey flowers. Male bumblebees are often silvery like this one, or blonde.

As the forecast for later this week is for rain, Joey and Marcus decided to extract honey while the sun was shining.

 Now I see here Joey was capping the jars and soon after she was stung on the head. A bee got caught in her hair. Ouch! I removed the stinger and we "framed" it on a piece of tape for posterity.

Marcus wipes honey off of sticky faces so no-one else gets stung! We did have one other casualty as a well-meaning student attempted to wash honeybees that got immersed in honey. She got stung on the finger.

 It was a fantastic day to see bees of all stripes, especially all the tiny sweat and mining bees.

This was taken early in the day as the bee was waking up. Bees don't tend to forage on feverfew, so  he was just resting here.

I've started using my hand to help my camera focus on the bee.

Always check thistles for bees. They are a definite favorite. They should definitely plant artichokes in this garden for the bumblebees.

The bumblebee nests have produced new queens and males.

Also check for small bees in the queen Anne's lace, especially on sunny afternoons. The flowers were swarming with bees, flies, wasps and beetles.

Many wool carder bees were caught and released.

The bee teachers. We look happy!

Well I was thrilled because one of the boys found ANOTHER rare bee! I'm pretty sure this is Anthophora terminalis, another ground-nesting bee. (ETA: It's actually the only anthophora bee that nests in rotting wood). It's another one I've never seen in Vancouver.

 Can you see the red bit on the last tergite?

We'll need to think about planting the preferred forage plants of this bee.

OMG: What a cute bee! For really good photos, and some great info on bees that lick sweat, check out this post from the Home Bug Gardener.

So they've taken out the railway ties. I have mixed feelings. The railway SLOWED people down, making this a fantastic corridor for pollinators. I also have a great nostalgia for the tracks because I spent so much time around them in my childhood in Saskatchewan. However, a bike trail here would be good and the creosote on the ties is toxic. Still, every time earth is moved--ground nesting bees suffer because they lose nests. All these things need to be considered, especially with rare ground-nesting bees in the vicinity.

Day One at Bee School for Kids: This Changes Everything

Bee school has begun! Marcus introduced the students to the world of honeybees and finished by letting everyone sample some honey straight from the comb.

The students were kind enough to share some honey with the sweet, non-stinging drones. My, what big eyes you have!

 

 

Then it was my turn to talk about the native bees, including these bumblebees that were robbing nectar from comfrey growing right next to the hive.

And this is the correct way for a bee to access comfrey nectar if her tongue is long enough.

The arugala flowers near the hive were feeding some of the tiny sweat bees.

Artist Jasna Guy graciously helped us make badges for bees and shared her awesome teaching resources with us.

We saw a lot of yellow-faced bumblebees and one student even caught three at once. They even noticed a bumblebee nesting site right by the honeybee hives.

One student caught a male European wool carder bee. She called it the wooly mammoth bee. "Lady, get me outta here!" (All bees we caught were released.)

Before heading off on a bee safari, we had a healthy snack.

And some folks brought their snacks along. We feasted on berries and found lots of bees. What a fun day!

But the most exciting thing was catching what I believe to be a very rare sighting in Vancouver: A California bumblebee (Bombus californicus). See how the head is black, not yellow like Bombus vosnesenskii?

Note how the body is long and lanky compared to other common Vancouver bumblebees.

Here the bee is raising a leg as a warning threat. So this means we really should plant a bumblebee conservation garden here at World in a Garden. This is a really important finding! It also means that it would not be a good idea to load the neighborhood with more honeybee hives. There are plenty of native bees here to pollinate the neighborhood plants. We need to support the bumblebees by planting flowers unique to their foraging needs in order to ameliorate competition with other bees.

Check out this new study from Norway regarding bumblebees losing the battle for forage with honeybees: Wild bees lose the fight for flowers.

Good News for Vancouver Bees: Saving the Arbutus Corridor

Let's focus on some good news for National Pollinator Week. Now that the City of Vancouver has purchased the Arbutus Corridor, countless bees and an important pollinator corridor have been saved.

The combination of cultivated gardens and weedy verges make up a healthy biodiversity of plants that support bees and good nesting sites for a wide range of native bees.

Many of these bees are smaller than honeybees and they do not sting.

These bees ensure the berries and fruit along the Arbutus corridor develop ripe, plump fruit.

They may not make honey, but working as a team they are actually more efficient pollinators than honeybees.

Bumblebees and honeybees can sting, but male bees like this one cannot sting. If you learn to tell the male bees from the female, you can pet them like a little cat.

This female bee is carrying at least two different kinds of pollen in her pollen baskets.

This native shrub, Douglas' Spirea is like cotton candy for bees. They scramble over it collecting pollen.

Thistles also attract bees of all stripes.

 These umbels made of tiny flowers attract the wee bees that tickle when they land on your skin.

This bee has bright yellow hairs that mimic the pollen it carries.

California poppies attract bumblebees, leafcutter bees, turquoise sweat bees, and more.

This bee's setae, or branched hairs are completely coated in orange pollen.

This flower in the aster family (Erigeron, I believe) was attracting bees of all stripes.

Flowers in the carrot family attract the tiniest of bees.

I'm thrilled to be one of the instructors this year in World in a Garden's Bee-Coming Leaders: A Bee School for kids. We'll be going on safaris to watch these native bees every day of the camp.

These kids will be able to mentor other kids who want to learn more about bees and the stewardship issues around creating healthy habitat for pollinators. Many thanks to the City of Vancouver for protecting this important site and let's make sure it is developed and enriched for pollinators for the future.