Bugger, the mozzies are back too!

They are back and they are hungry, and not just this nearly invisible  crab spider

A few weeks of warmth and the Home Bug Garden is bursting with blooms and starting to fill with green. Bugs, beetles, spiders and flies all seem to be racing to catch up with the late Spring. Alas, even the snow-melt mosquitoes have shown up.

Aedes vexans - one of my least favourite flies

I've been too busy swatting them to take a picture and they are a bit on the small side for my point-and-shoot anyway, but here's one of the more common ones from a previous year (arrow = proboscis). That week or two between the first warm days and the first brood of mosquitoes that breed in the shallow, grassy pools left by the melting snow, is always so pleasant, and ephemeral.

Monsella Double Early Tulip - rather late in May this year

 Great time for bees and the blossoms they prefer too. Especially scenic are the white rosaceous fruit trees and shrubs, the cherries, apple and saskatoon.

Bombus perplexus queen providing a service to our apple crop

The apple seems to be especially attractive to the large bumble bee queens, but not so attractive as the Golden Willow (Salix alba Vitellina), now rather dowdy with its orange twigs covered in things that look more like green baby corn cobs than flowers.

Bombus perplexus queen in Golden Willow

The earlier flowering willows are very important food sources for bumble bee queens when they first emerge from hibernation. In the early spring, the willows have little competition for pollinators, but now they must have something very special to be able to drag the bees away from the more showy flowers.

White-throated Sparrow migrating through

The birds are back too. Although the Robins have been around for weeks, other migratory song birds did not make an appearance until this week. Most will just pass through, as with the White-throated Sparrow above, but Chipping Sparrows always seem to find the Home Bug Garden a good place to raise a family.

Chipping Sparrow (male) freshly bathed after its long trip north

Well, a great place for a bath and a reasonably secure place to forage. Our one surviving cat is now allowed to waddle in the backyard without a leash, but she is too old and fat to be much of a threat and should help keep out the lean and mean neighbourhood wanders.

Chipping Sparrow Clay-coloured Sparrow probably just passing through

Ah warmth, it has been sooo long!

And the bees are back too

Bombus rufocinctus Queen at Elephant Ears

This last week has seen bumble bees (preferred to 'bumblebees' by some) on the wing in central Alberta. All flying at the moment are fall-mated queens newly emerged from hibernation and intending to found new colonies. This one is a queen of a red morph of Bombus rufocinctus nectaring at the flowers of an Elephant Ear (Bergenia cordifolia).

T2-3-4 red-orange = Red-banded Bumble Bee (B. rufocinctus)

One of the more variable and confusing of the local species, the Red-banded Bumble Bee has numerous colour morphs. Like many insects with a noxious taste (and bad taste rather than the ability to sting is thought to be more important), bumble bees that tend to look like each other are more likely to be left alone to go about the business of raising a family. This is called Müllerian mimicry. Unfortunately, bees that all want to look alike leave many a bee-afficionado scratching their head when trying to put a name on them.

Bombus moderatus Queen wishing I would go away

Names are important, especially scientific names, if we want to keep track of species. Ten years ago when the Home Bug Garden was starting to take form, we had regular visits from the Yellow-banded Bumble Bee Bombus (Bombus) terrricola. Since then that species has become very rare, perhaps gone (I think I saw a queen at the Royal Alberta Museum last week). But a new Bombus (Bombus) has come along, Bombus moderatus (aka cryptarum). I suppose that is a good thing, a White-tailed Bumble Bee (or Cryptic Bumble Bee if you prefer obscure common names) is an interesting addition to the pollinator fauna, but what's up with the Yellow-banded? 

Andrena milwaukeensis Graenicher, 1903, tanking-up at Coltsfoot. Seemingly too small and obscure for a common name, would we miss it if one spring it didn't show up?

Of course, bees too shuffle off their mortal coils - should that give us pause? Does it make sense to get all flustered about the decline of a bug, even one with a generally nice reputation and useful lifestyle like a bee? Sure plants need pollinators, but aren't there plenty of them out there? Well, seeming not so much as there used to be in places like the United Kingdom and North America. 

A fat cat secure in its knowledge that food will always miraculously appear

If a bee disappears will we miss its buzz? Not unless we can put a name on the buzzer. For most bees that is not such an easy thing, but hope is on the horizon, at least for bumble bees. A new citizen science project for North Americans is about to take wing: Bumble Bee Watch (http://bumblebeewatch.org/) and a new field guide will soon be out:
Williams, P., L. Richardson, R.Thorp & S.R. Colla. (To be released spring 2013) A Field Guide to the Bumblebees of North America. Princeton University Press.

From sun to rain in 13 hrs: So long sunny weekend

Now, if the weather would only cooperate. It isn't only cats and people that enjoy sunny weekends. This is a critical time for the spring bees - all are starting their nests and need some sun and warmth to fly and to encourage the flowers to bloom. Alas, this is Alberta.

Bee Gone until Spring: Itztlacoliuhqui Returns

Two well worn Leaf-cutter Bees making sunflower seeds as the Equinox looms

Alas, Itztlacoliuhqui has awakened and the season of hard frosts has begun. It seems peevish to complain after what seemed a relatively long and mild Autumn, but was it? Determining the First Fall Frost isn't as easy as it sounds given the variable nature of climate, the movement of winds, and the effects of concrete and buildings. Officially, frost is when the air drops to 0 degrees Celsius at 150 cm above the ground as measured in a standardized instrument shelter. These weather stations tend to be located at airports or other official facilities. The Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development site gives the average First Fall Frost Date for three such facilities around Edmonton: the International Airport (Sept 10) located in the open fields well to the south of town, the Canadian Forces Namao Base downtown (21 Sept), and Stony Plain (21 Sept) well to the west. Another commonly given date is for Edmonton's FFF is 23 September, just after the Autumnal Equinox.

Leaf-cutters use their hairy bellies to hold pollen, something sunflowers must appreciate

The Home Bug Garden isn't particularly close to any of the official sites and doesn't have an official weather station of its own. What I use are a thermometer on the porch railing, the garage roof, and the crop plants originating in South America to determine First Fall Frost and First Killing Frost. This year the first frosty roof was 16 September (thermometer < 1 C). The average for the last 8 years is 12 September (range 28 Aug to 23 Sept). The beans, tomatoes, and peppers died on the morning of 4 October (-4 C). The average for the Killing Frost for the last 8 years is 2 October (range 17 Sept to 15 Oct). I guess a week or two after the Equinox is the best I can expect.

Scarlet Runners, tomatoes and peppers know when Itztlacoliuhqui has returned

So, this Autumn hasn't been unusually long. I guess it just seemed that way by way of memories of previous less pleasant Septembers. Another influence has been that the flowers have been essentially bee-free for two weeks. Flowers with no bees seems wrong, and the few honeybees to be found don't make it quite right. I don't begrudge honey bees the bit of honey they may make, after all they've just been robbed of their summer's savings and have nothing but sugar water to look forward to until spring. But where are the native bees?

Where have all the bees gone? Gone to graveyards every one?

Sadly, most bees have a life that is nasty, brutish, and short. Well, short at least. It's hard to think of days wallowing in flowers as being all that brutish and they do seem to enjoy their work. Bees never seem bored, at least not until late in the season. Then they do tend to bludge a bit, but by then they are old and worn as the tattered wings in the pictures of the Leaf Cutter Bees (Megachile sp.) above attest. Most of our native bees are active for but one season. They spend the winter in an immature stage (typically a pupa) in a nest, emerge from their nest holes in the spring or summer, make plants set seed and new bees grow for as long as they can, and then die.

Cleptoparasite Coelioxys - a bad bee if you are a Megachile

Not all of their nests will produce new bees in the spring, or at least not the bees that they hoped. Some will freeze, some will dry out, some will be dug up, some will turn into fungi or bacteria, and some will transform into different kinds of bees or wasps or flies or other kinds of parasitic insects. Our leaf-cutter bees have to run the gauntlet of all of these woes, but perhaps the most insidious club-strike is the robbing and murder by Cuckoo Leaf-cutter Bees in the genus Coelioxys. These bees invade a nest of a Megachile (a close relative), deposit their own egg, and their larva then eats the provisions collected by the Megachile and kill her young. As fascinating as this 'theft parasitism' (kleptoparasitism) may be, I'm sure that even Aesops would have found it difficult to draw a moral lesson. 

Spring and this Megachile wants what the Bombus borealis is monopolizing

Oh well, at least some bees build their own bed of roses and some get to see both Fall and Spring. Bumble bees (Bombus spp.) are an exception to the work hard and die in the Fall of beedom. Worker and drone bumble bees are all pretty much at permanent rest now, but next year's queens are huddled down in an old mouse burrow or some other refuge waiting for next spring. Unless someone accidentally digs one up while gardening, these queens will emerge as early as warmth permits and start new colonies in May. A bit later the Megachile that survived will emerge and join the growing legions of busy pollinators, and of course, their parasites and predators. And Itztlacoliuhqui will go to sleep until around the next Equinox.

Mystery male parasitoid enjoys the summer's bounty

The Good Bugs, the Bad, and the Not as bad as you might think

Bumble Bee queen at Canada Thistle

Even after having been stung by bumble bee a few weeks ago in a misguided attempt to be a bumble bee lifeguard, I still view bumble bees as entirely good bugs. I think the picture above is of a new queen of Bombus (Subterraneobombus) borealis Kirby, 1837, the Northern Amber Bumble Bee, but I could be mistaken. I don't like killing 'good bugs' and especially don't like to kill bumble bee queens just to be sure the name is right. In any case, it is covered with pollen and undoubtedly is being an efficient pollinator. Unfortunately, it is pollinating a Canada Thistle (Cirsium arvense) - a noxious weed that I have spent much time and money trying to control. So is this really a good bug or a bad bug? I think I'll stick to my original feelings and just keep in mind that life is complicated.

Bad, bad horse fly Hybomitra nuda (McDunnough, 1921)

Now here's a bad bug for sure - a horse fly Hybomitra (aka nitidifrons ssp.) nuda (McDunnough, 1921). I'm more sure of my identification here, because this sucker went to the microscope and and through a key. But then I'm not  a specialist on flies and a new key to the 40 species east of the Rockies was not available at the time, so don't take my word for it. Still, I had no problem killing this 'bad bug' even though it is rare that a Hybomitra has successfully bitten me. They do try, but are rather clumsy and easy to swat. At most, they are annoying when they bump into you or fly about (these are large flies with an angry buzz). But they are definitely a pest of livestock and wildlife and transmit a number of disease causing microbes such as anthrax.

Ankle-biting bad relative of the not-so-nice House Fly: the Stable Fly

Not that I haven't often been bitten by flies such as this very annoying, but rather small and drab, Stable Fly (Stomoxys calcitrans (Linnaeus, 1758)). Except for the long 'beak' (proboscis) that juts forward under the face when they are resting on the side of a barn, shed, or house, this fly looks rather like its cousin the House Fly or a dozen other irritating, but non-biting relatives. The Stable Fly has accumulated a lot of common names, but 'lawn mower fly' seems particularly appropriate. They seem to know when your hands are employed with power tools and if you are wearing shorts - they love your ankles.

Note the jutting proboscis of the Stable Fly

I really don't like this unfortunate addition to the North American fauna (first noticed sometime around 1700) and would happily spend any time available reducing their populations. This is a throughly nasty biting fly and vector of disease. Unfortunately, Stable Flies are fast and seem to know we don't like them. Also, they breed in rotting vegetation and dung, so they will always be with us.

More Ferdinand the Bull than bully: Male Aerial Yellowjacket at Snowberry

Late summer and pre-frost fall are also time for annoying visits from yellowjackets and hornets. This is the time when the nests are at their largest and the workers are busy feeding hordes of new queens and drones. However, not every yellowjacket is interested in what you are eating and drinking. While all yellowjackets will defend their nests, it's really only the members of the Vespula vulgaris group that like to feed on our sandwiches and drinks. In Edmonton that means three species: Common, Western, and German Yellowjackets (and the larger, black and white Bald-faced Hornet). That is certainly enough to be annoying, but there are a number of other social wasps that spend most of their time hunting insects (so, more or less good bugs) or gathering nectar at flowers. The yellowjackets that you see at flowers in the fall are almost entirely males of these more-good-than-bad wasps, e.g. the Northern Aerial Yellowkacket Dolichovespula arenaria (Fabricius, 1775). You can enjoy these wasps for their colourful patterns and flowery obsessions with no worries about being stung.

Male Dolichovespula arenaria (Fabricius, 1775)

I just want to bee ... Up close and personal

Toe-licking Anthophora terminalis - a sweat bee in the loose sense

I like bees. I mean what's not to like - they tend to be cute and furry and buzzy and like flowers and pollinate most of our vegetable and fruit crops. In popular culture bees are almost universally presented as good (unless they are killer bees) and 'bad bees' usually turn out to be wasps. I'll even let bees lick my toes as in the honeybee-sized solitary relative of the honey bee above and below.

Anthophora (Clisodon) terminalis Cresson, 1869 aka the Tickler

I don't advise that anyone else do this. For one thing, it tickles. For another most bees have stings and can and will use them when provoked - and the bee decides when it is provoked, not you. For example, last weekend I found some poor bumble bees drowning in a bucket of water. The first two I 'saved' were dead, the third wasn't and she proceeded to sting me right  in the thumb. Hurt like hell for 10 minutes and I can still see the ~ 1mm diameter wound. Most bee stings are similar - strong but fleeting reminders to leave bees alone - but if I were allergic to the proteins in the venom and went into shock, I would likely now be dead. Anaphylactic shock can kill quickly (within 30 minutes) and that is a very good reason to admire bees and wasps from a distance.

A Northern Hemisphere Sweat Bee - Halictus confusus Smith, 1853

Some bees, though, like to get up close and personal. I've read that honey bees are sometimes attracted to brightly coloured clothing or floral perfumes. I have no first-hand experience in these areas, but I have been known to sweat. In the Northern Hemisphere, 'sweat bee' usually refers to rather small solitary bees in the family Halictidae that land on sweaty skin and slurp away. Usually they are only of minor annoyance and the occasional very mild sting. In the Southern Hemisphere 'sweat bee' usually refers to the small, stingless (they can bite) social bees in the genus Trigona. I kept hives of stingless bees in Australia, and never found them annoying, but the South American species have a worse reputation, especially for swarming around the head.

Solitary caterpiilar-hunting wasp sharing an ankle with the Home Bug Gardener

The urge to lick skin is usually attributed to an addiction to salt (sodium chloridae). In general, plant tissues contain less sodium than animal tissues, so herbivores - bees or puddling butterflies or moose at a salt lick (or people eating their veggies) - appreciate salt.  But perspiration has many minerals and nutrients that may be useful to an insect raised on pollen and nectar, so we should keep an open mind on exactly what these bees are after. They seem too persistent to be just after salt, but it could be the 'can't eat just one' phenomenon, as with potato chips.

Euodynerus leucomelas (de Saussure, 1855) - a sweat wasp?

Some days I think I may be the potato chip of the insect world as a surprising diversity of bees, wasps, and bugs have landed on me with salt-lust rather than bloodlust in mind. One at a time, I find them interesting, but in numbers these insects can be annoying, especially if you can run, but not hide. For example, this description of a trip down a river in the Amazon: "As they moved through the silent forests, the men's only constant companions were the insects that thickened the air around them. Sweat bees tickled their mouths and eyes, piums [no-see-ums] hovered over them in thick clouds, and ants and termites regularly raided their camp and devoured their few belongings." (Millard, C. 2005. The River of Doubt, p. 248). Sounds like more than one interesting insect too many.

I just want to bee ... left alone

Newly emerged Bombus moderatus looking for a night's rest in a daisy

Bug Girl tells me that my idea of a post defending Spiderman's wrist-spinning abilities based on what we know about hox genes and what we don't know about radioactive spider venom would be a traffic fatality. Well, the Home Bug Garden has never been about high traffic, just musing about urban biodiversity and trying to stay sane in Zone 3, but maybe I'm getting too serious. Ergo, a new (and probably ephemeral) series for those of us who just want to bee left alone.

Some day maybe she'll be a queen, but it's a long time until next May

And who better to kick off the series, then our very own recent colonist Bombus moderatus (or is it cryptarum? Only the genes know for sure). This newly emerged adult female showed up the other night in the cool evening between storms looking for a place to sleep. It's nearing the end of summer in Zone 3 and the successful bumble bee colonies are producing mostly reproductives: males (drones) and females (next year's queens). A few workers continue their job of collecting pollen and nectar, but most of the bumble bees you see at flowers from now until frost will be drones. Now and then you may find a large and brightly coloured queen wannabe. She'll have to load up on carbos and find a place to outlast predators, parasites, and the long cold winter. If she survives until May, then she has a chance to found her own colony and be a queen, but right now she can only dream.

To sleep, perchance to dream ...

A Splendid Alternative to Blurry Bees

What's wrong with my camera?

I never had much truck with tennis players that blamed their racket for a bad shot, but some days I end up cursing my point-and-shoot with a similar lack of logic. Ever had a fun hour of snapping busy bees and ended up with pictures like that above by an anonymous 'photographer'? Well, if so, then Splendor Awaits has some excellent advice on Making a bee line ...

Impressionist or Incompetent, you decide

Of course, some unexpected pictures aren't all that bad. Perhaps I have a latent artistic gene (or I badly need a visit to my optometrist)?

A Sour Solution: Feed your bees & beetles cherries

Andrena bee in Evans Cherry Blossom

Edmonton has a lot of intrusive bylaws, but the ban on keeping honey bees is an especially annoying one for home gardeners. Many vegetable and fruit crops require cross-pollination, something honey bees are very good at, but they are a rare sight in the Home Bug Garden. Fortunately, the native' pollinators have responded well to the conversion from lawn into open woodland and I get 'free' pollination services.

Scarlet Malachite Beetle & cherry blossoms

I have a half-dozen varieties of cherries (Prunus) blooming in the Zone 3 HBG at the moment, but none are the Sweet Cherries that are commonly found in grocery stores. Zone 7 is about the limit for most Sweet Cherries, although some apparently can survive into Zone 5. Instead, I have a variety of 'bird cherries' (Nanking Cherry, Mayday, Sandcherry) and 'sour cherries': Prunus cerasus 'Evans' and some hybrids between cerasus and the Mongolian Cherry P. fruticosus called Prunus x-kerrasis developed at the University of Saskatchewan.

7-spot Lady Beetle - not a great pollinator, but a good predator of Black Cherry Aphid

The 'sour' cherries are self-fertile, but still need insects to move their pollen around. Currently, at least four species of bees (Andrena milwaukeensis, Bombus moderatus, Halictus confusus, and an unidentified Lasioglossum), the two beetles above, and a small hover fly have been seen doing their best to help me make cherries for snacks, crumbles, pies, and wine.

Cat-licking good: Half the first harvest

The Evans Cherries are 7-8 years old and small trees. Each Evans has produced 5-10 kg of slightly tart cherries for the last three years - as pleasant as raspberries for snacking and a very nice fruit wine base. The Prunus x-kerrasis hybrids (Carmine Jewel, Romeo, Juliette) are younger, shrubby cherries, but are reputed to have rather sweet fruit. This is the first year they have had more than a few blooms, so I hope to be able to test the 'sweet' hypothesis. Thanks to the bees, beetles, and flies, of course.

Evans Cherry reaching for the sky

Adventures in Spider Misidentification: A matter of taste

Small male spider, possibly a Dwarf Spider

A happy coincidence of chores done and some sun and warmth between squalls on Friday convinced Mrs Home Bug Gardener to leave the computer behind to continue her photographic documentation of the Home Bug Garden. As noted previously, the most notable activity was the buzzing around the spring bulbs. But here and there lurked a spider or two. The tiny wandering male above, I think it may be an erigonine linyphiid, proved a challenge - at 3-4 mm long, a tough shot - but also a surprise. Spiders aren't to everyone's taste, but something found this tiny spider tasty.

Ectoparasitoid - probably a wasp grub

Spiders as a group get by almost entirely by feasting on insects. A few sip nectar at extrafloral nectaries, and possibly in flowers, and some sieve pollen out of the air with their webs. But by and large, spiders eat bugs. So, I guess it is only fair that a host of insects turn the tables on spiders and feast on them. Generally, spiders are eaten from the inside out by their parasitoids*, or at least their egg masses are, but beetles and mantids munch them up and hunting wasps pack them into cells as a feast for their grubs. There are also a few that get by with a more precarious existence - perched on the outside of the spider as in this picture. This seems to be the grub of an Ichneumonidae in what is called the 'Polysphincta Genus Group' . I assume this means the group is a taxonomic mess, but at BugGuide Bob Carlson has contributed a very nice series of pictures showing the life cycle of one such wasp.

Docile Digger Wasp

On the whole, I think I'd rather sip nectar like a bee, than suck on spider insides, but that is a personal choice and I know many people find the larger spiders tasty (NB - the poor quality of the video provides some protection, but if you are afraid of spiders, do not watch this video). But another surprise of the afternoon was finding something that likes to eat bees in my own backyard.

Tritrophic interaction: flower, bee, and ?

This particular Digger Bee (Andrena cf milwaukeensis) was extremely accommodating as a photographer's model. And if you look closely at the posterior of the abdomen you will see the probable reason.

Stylops female - the protruding blob

Alas, this particular bee is more than she seems. Most of her insides are a new ordinal record for the Home Bug Garden - a Twisted-wing Insect: Strepsiptera. I think this is a species of Stylops, parasites of Andrena bees, and while I am delighted to find the 349th species of insect so far identified in the HBG, I do feel a bit sorry for the bee. This type of parasitism is called 'stylopization' and as many as a quarter of the Digger Bees in an area may be parasitized**. The males of Stylops have to be seen to be believed. As yet, we have no pictures, but Nico's Wild bees & wasps photo stream has a spectacular picture of a male attempting copulation.

References


*Oliver-D. Finch. 2005. The parasitoid complex and parasitoid-induced mortality of spiders (Araneae) in a Central European woodland. Journal of Natural History 39(25): 2339–2354.
http://www.terreco.uni-oldenburg.de/Medien/Download/TNAH_39_25_06.pdf 


**Davy & Grace Jones. 1981. Stylopization of Andrena spp. (Hymenoptera: Andrenidae) by Stylops crawfordi (Strepsiptera: Stylopidae) in Texas. Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society

54(2): 223-227.