Mapping Pollinator Hotspots in the Riley Park Community Garden

This week I'll be working with the community to map the pollinator hotspots at the Riley Park Community Garden and logging the types of pollinators that are visiting the garden at this time of the year. Our main event is the workshop on Saturday afternoon from 1:30 pm to 3 pm, but I am getting a head start on targeting and labelling some of the key plants and pollinators we'll be studying. Today I noticed this female turquoise sweat bee sunning herself on the petal of a purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) plant. Then she started scanning the soil underneath the plant for her nesting hole where she lays her eggs and provisions the nesting cells with pollen.

Lucky for her, there are patches of bare soil under the plant. She was searching for a hole, but seemed unable to locate it. Or perhaps she was deciding on the best location to make a new nest. Bees memorize the objects and plants around the nest hole in their own kind of mapping exercise. I noticed this plant growing under the Echinacea. It's a "weed" called common purslane (Portulaca oleracea). In doing research on vegan forms of Omega 3 fatty acids, I discovered that this is a very nutritious plant and an important one in the vegan diet. I recently saw an online post by a farmer who wanted to know what herbicide to use on it. Rather that killing it, he should be harvesting and selling it! It's delicious in salads. I've made a Greek salad with it, which is fantastic, and I'm sure you could puree it, freeze it in ice cube trays and put it in smoothies. Studies are showing the plant is full of  omega 3 fatty acids and antioxidants. I buy mine at the UBC Farmer's market from the Mayan gardeners.

I'd never seen common purslane in bloom until now, so we much check to see if the pollinators are using the blossoms. In any case, it's a nutritious ground cover that can serve as a sign post for ground-nesting bees and a healthy food for humans.

Please join us on Saturday to look for bees, butterflies and more!!!

Postcards from Kalamalka Lake

This is a Northern Checkerspot butterfly I saw yesterday while out hiking near Kalamalka Lake with the North Vernon Naturalists Club. I'm so grateful for the chance to tag along with these kind folks who have an extensive knowledge and appreciation of the local flora and fauna.

A snakefly grazes in the surreal meadow of a spirea blossom.

I spotted a dead bee in a flower and picked it up to get a closer look. I was surprised to find the dead bee was connected to a crab spider. I had interrupted her brunch!

If you look closely, you can see that this is likely a little hairy belly bee that was collecting pollen from nearby plants just moments before she was snatch by this spider.

This looks like the same species of bee, which was feeding on vetch.

This is an agapostemon bee, gathering pollen on its hairy back legs or "pollen pants". It's name means "lover of stamens".

Here's another LGB (little green bee), a hairy belly mason bee foraging on snowberry.

These tiny shiny bees are difficult to photograph because they're so fast!!!

The funny little "eyebrows" on this bee tells us it's an Andrena mining bee that likely nests in the soil  right under these snowberry plants.

You can see she also has hairy back legs for collecting pollen. Snowberry is an essential beescaping plant because it blooms for months, filling in nectar and pollen gaps as other flowers bloom and fade. Many of the "hot spots" we saw on this hike were near snowberry patches. Especially those with wild roses and geraniums.

Look for holes like this which may house ground nesting bees. Seventy per cent of bee species nest in the ground!

Bees love cranesbill geraniums!!!

Wild asparagus is going to seed.

Baby birds in a nest hole begging for food. Decaying trees also provide important habitat for cavity nesting bees.

This fuzzy green-eyed teddy bear is a male leafcutter bee, a species that lives in holes in decaying wood.

I'm in love with this little beetle that mimics bees. See how its hairs are coated in fine pollen?

Look at how cute the elytra are! Looks like they shrunk in the wash.

Beetles gotta bonk.

If you count the antennae, you'll see this is a saucy threesome!

This was the very first bee spotted on the hike: Bombus bifarius. It has a marking like a bikini bottom on its thorax. You can see she's a fairly big bee, and likely a queen. Her workers are about half this size.

You can see this bumblebee has collected a wad of pollen from the wild roses. In fact, these blossoms only provide pollen, so she needs to visit other flowers for nectar to give her the energy to collect the pollen to feed to her brood.

This bee looks like it may be a Bombus rufocinctus. She's filling up on the nectar in this red clover.

So thrilled to see this snowberry clearwing moth, a fan of the copious amounts of nectar in this white clover. I did see one feeding on a snowberry blossom too.

I've never seen so many butterflies and moths until I came to Vernon. Amazing!!!

 

 

This is a native plant in the mint family, Prunella vulgaris. It's great for bees and thrives in moist areas.

We saw some lovely tiger lilies, just past their prime.

When these oceanspray shrubs bloom they will be covered with bees.

Trumpet honeysuckle is a stunning hummingbird plant.

Flowers in the sunflower or aster family are incredibly important for many species of bees. This is a female leafcutter bee collecting pollen on her hairy belly. Gaillardias are indispensable in a bee garden.

Many of those tiny shiny bees that look like flying ants love these smaller flowers in the aster family.

I believe this is a jumping spider that mimics a velvet ant which itself is a wasp that mimics an ant!!!!

This is a pair of mating Tachinid flies that mimic lady-bugs.

Thanks again to the kind folks who made it possible for me to join this hike!!! Happy trails!

Operation Bumble Bee Nest Relocation

 What a beautiful evening to go rescue some baby bumble bees! As I wait at this bus stop on Main Street, I'm thinking about what a fun mission my friend Sarah Johnson and I have taken on: relocating a bumble nest from an apartment balcony and moving them to our back yard. The owner of the balcony put out a call for help on Instagram. She had opened up a piece of sod rolled up in a plastic tarp and found some buzzing critters. From the photo, I could tell that a bumble bee queen had made her nest in the cavity formed inside the sod and there were already a small group of female worker bees busy gathering pollen to feed to their baby sisters. How exciting!

Sarah and I put our heads together and came up with a plan. She suggested we move the bees at night because all the workers are home asleep, so no one would get lost because they were out foraging. Alexandria Farmer (a bumble bee nesting specialist who currently works at Mount Royal University as a senior lab instructor) had advised her to bring a big Rubbermaid container and some duct tape. I rounded up a couple of beekeeping suits, so we wouldn't get stung. I asked "M" if I could come earlier in the afternoon to photograph the bees. She graciously gave me permission to access to the balcony. With "M" and her wee dog safely behind the door,  I gingerly unwrapped the tarp and saw a lovely little nest of Bombus mixtus bees. As you can see, they are tending the wax pots where the queen lays her eggs and the workers feed the larvae pollen. They are also making a wax roof over the cavity for extra protection. One worker was digging, perhaps to make the cavity a bit larger. Bumblebee nests can only grow as large as the cavity the queen has chosen to nest in. (This is why they don't tend to last to long if they nest in small bird houses. They simply outgrow the space.)

I took several photographs and then two of the bees suddenly flew up at me. I brushed them off, but they did not sting. Still, I got the message, so I closed up the tarp and headed back inside.

I had imagined we would need to cut the bees out of the larger piece of sod to put it in a wooden bumble bee nesting box, but Sarah suggested a much simpler solution. I went home to fetch the bee suits and returned after sunset to meet Sarah at "M"'s house.  And here we are, dressed in our gear.

As you can see, the appropriate footwear is very important in these situations!

Sarah took a look at the size of the turf and suggested we simply lift it into the plastic container. On the count of three we heaved it into the box. It was very awkward and heavy, but no bees flew out at all, so the nests Sarah brought were not needed, and the bee suits were total overkill. Bombus mixtus are known for their gentle temperament. Sarah taped up the container, and we barely even heard a buzz coming from the nest.

 We carried the box to the truck of Sarah's car and bid adieu to "M" who can now enjoy her balcony with her pup and not worry about getting stung or disturbing the flight path of the bees.

 By now it was very dark and I couldn't find a flashlight with working batteries, so Sarah had to use the flashlight on her cell phone to carry the box with the help of my husband to a stump under our lilac tree in the back yard. We removed the lid so they could acclimatize to their new home. In the morning, each bee would take an orientation flight to be able to find her way back to the nest. They didn't have to fly far, as the black cap raspberries are blooming just a few feet away from their new home. Peter fashioned a roof for the box to keep off the rain.

We asked "M" what name we should give to the bumblebees. She is a fan of the mystic and herbalist Hildegard von Bingen, so we have named them the Bingen Bumbles. Here's one of the workers gathering pollen from the black raspberry flowers. I checked on the nest and the workers have continued to make the little wax roof. I'm so happy we could adopt this lovely nest! And we'll have more berries than ever this summer!!!!

Sarah Johnson is working on a PHD studying bumble bees in British Columbia at Simon Fraser University. You can follower her adventures on Instagram @manysarahs. She's also got a fantastic Twitter feed @manysarahs . You can also follow my adventures and misadventures on Instagram @beespeaker.

If you listened to my interview on North by Northwest on CBC radio, I mentioned some great plants to grow for PNW native bees: salal, kinnikinnik, Oregon grape, nodding onion, chives, garlic chives, anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) and Persion cat mint (Nepeta cultivars). For more info on plants for bees check out my book Victory Gardens for Bees: A DIY Guide to Saving the Bees.

I’ll be giving a talk for Salmonberry Days on Tuesday, May 28 at 7:30 pm at the Dunbar Community Centre in Vancouver (4747 Dunbar Street). There’s a $5 drop-in fee for those people who aren’t members of the Dunbar Garden Club and I’ll have some books on hand for sale for $25 (cash only). Please spread the word and check out the other awesome events at the festival!