Bumbling with Bombus: Chives, Bumblebees & Corrections

Three queens of the Tricoloured Bumble Bee at Chives flowers

As herbs go, Chives (Allium schoenoprasum) isn't one of my favourites. I find it rather mild and usually too tenuous for my palate. As flowering onions go, though, Chives is attractive and reliable. Even better, the bees love it. On Friday, one of my patches of Chives in the country (at Gopher Hill) had a dozen bumble bee queens nectaring.

Also known as Orange-belted Bumble Bee Bombus ternarius

The most abundant of these bees, and probably the easiest of all Edmonton area bumble bees to learn, was a half dozen Bombus ternarius the Tricoloured Bumble Bee. The only other Bombus here with a pair of orange bands between two yellow ones on the abdomen is Hunt's Bumble Bee (B. huntii) and this bee lacks the black triangle pointing back on the thorax and has yellow hairs on the head and face (usually black in ternarius, as above, but not always).  The black triangle is a 'key character' amongst the orange-banded bees.

Hunt's seems to be fairly rare here, but the Tricoloured is very common. In the foothills and mountains, e.g. around Calgary, the Forest Bumble Bee B. sylvicola can look very similar, but usually has two yellow bands behind the orange ones.

Half-black Bumble Bee Queen Bombus vagans or rufocinctus?

More easily confused are the two Half-black Bumble Bees that we have in Edmonton, the 'true' Half-black (B. vagans) and the Perplexing Half-black (B. perplexus - aka Confusing Bumble Bee). I've buggered these up before, but now can usually tell them apart. The local B. perplexus seems to arrive earlier in the spring and has only a small, circular area of black between the wing bases and the yellow on the side of the thorax is interrupted by black. Bombus vagans has more extensive black between the wing bases and uninterrupted yellow under the wings - and often some yellow hairs on the posterior abdomen (nice character when present). [Update - and just to keep us guessing, the ever variable Bombus rufocinctus also has a half-black morph.]

Perplexing Half-black Bumble Bee queen Bombus perplexus

Weather Whinging, Camouflage, Violets & Mosquitoes

Bombus rufocinctus queen climbing Jacob's Ladder in a rare ray of sunshine

Those of you who make a habit of reading this blog already know that I make a habit of whinging about Edmonton's weather. Although I have taken every opportunity to point out its failings, the Weather has yet to improve one bit. I give up! If it wants to rain every day in June, then let it. Instead here are a few interesting bugs and flowers from those rare moments between showers. Goldenrod is a great flower for insects, and so, always a joy to see in bloom (even though it means 'summer' is ending), but not especially interesting before it blooms - except this year. 

What the ...? 

Synchlora aerata (Fabricius, 1798), otherwise known as the Wavy-lined Emerald is a new visitor to the Home Bug Garden. Or at least I think it is - the first one I saw looked more like bits of leaves stuck in a spider web than a caterpillar and I wonder how many I'd missed in the past. Also known as the Camouflaged Inchworm (aka Looper), this geometer larva likes to eat a variety of composites - and adorn itself with bits of leaves and flowerheads. Many geometer caterpillars do very good imitations of twigs or are pale green with light longitudinal lines that blend into vegetation, but this was the first I've seen that dresses up the better to not be seen. Miklos Treiber studied some of these caterpillars and found the process was more or less continuous - as the fragments dried out the inchworm added new bits of plant (using a glue-like substance from its mouth).

Synchlora aerata (Fabricius, 1798) inching along

Anyway, there is lots of goldenrod, gayfeather and Joe Pye Weed in the Home Bug Garden, so the Camouflage Inchworm should feel right at home. Also popping up in a brief bit of sun is another native plant, the Prairie Violet Viola pedatifida. 

Prairie Violet Viola pedatifida

Also called the Crowfoot, Birdfoot or Larkspur Violet because of its dissected leaves, unlike most violets, this one likes it relatively hot and dry - gravelly hillsides and prairie grasslands being it usual habitats in Alberta. 'Hot and dry' are not appropriate terms for a garden in Edmonton, but two of the three plants I put into the southwest corner of the Home Bug Garden survived the winter and bloomed. 

AKA Crowfoot, Birdfoot and Larkspur Violet

Finally who can resist the charms of Edmonton's most famous flying insect, the mosquito. We bug paparazzi flock to them whenever we see them and try to annoy them as much as they annoy us. Here's one mugging for two cameras.

Two views of one mozzie.

Blue-eyed Grass & Wild Sarsaparilla

'Blue-eyed' Grass Sisrynchium montanum

I tend to be an impatient gardener. I usually buy plants when they are in bloom and the gratification is both immediate and guaranteed. The long winters here, though, and the pictures in the seed catalogues that start to arrive with the new year can set my mind to wandering, although usually in the direction of next summer's fresh veggies (and, this being Zone 3, those with the fewest days to maturity). Sometimes, though, as with last week's Anomalous Peony, I'll settle in for a longer wait.

Grass-like leaves and buds of Blue-eyed Grass (an iris)

Here's another example - Sisrynchium montanum, a Blue-eyed Grass, finally blooming four years after the seeds were planted. This species is a native and very attractive in bloom, although the flowers are only about 15 mm across and close when the sun is not shinning.

Closed flowers and seed pods on a gloomy Sunday

Some species of Sisrynchium do have pale blue tepals, but this Alberta native looks more like a Purple-eyed Grass to me, although the only other common name I found is Strict Blue-eyed Grass. It grows in meadows and other damp, open areas around the Province and much of North America.

Looking more like an iris, but no bluer, a German Iris ignores the gloom

Blue-eyed Grass is very modest compared to the horticultural varieties of its relatives in the genus Iris, but I'm quite happy with my little patch. On sunny days several dozen flowers have been in bloom and, although I have yet to see a pollinator, it seems to be seeding freely. When it comes to the Wild Sarsaparilla, though, the flowers are not the attraction.

Umbel of Wild Sarsaparilla Aralia nudicaulis

This is another Alberta native that can also be found throughout much of North America. My rhizomes were planted in 2007, so that makes it another 6-year wait, but this plant delivered interesting foliage from its first season.

Wild Sarsaparilla over Nodding Onion

I also admit to a bit of collectoritis - the Araliaceae otherwise being absent from the Home Bug Garden. Still, I find the leaves attractive and they seem to blend in well with my other shade-loving plants. Also, although the berries are usually described as 'insipid' or 'inedible', I thought the berries of the parent material quite tasty.

Wild Sarsaparilla, Epimedium, Hellbore, Bloodroot, Bedstraw, Vetch, Wild Lily-of-the-Valley and Sweet Cicely cohabiting in the shade

After a long wait, a week of splendour: Paeonia anomala

In-bud 6 years after the seeds were sown - Meet the Anomalous Peony

The other half of the Home Bug Gardener team likes peonies and the half that does most of the planting is always happy to do what he can to make her happy. Hybrid peony varieties are available by the hundreds and there is even a Canadian Peony Society that promotes their use. 

Formica podzolica on colourful, sugary hybrid peony sepals

Hybrid peonies have extrafloral nectaries, as do the species from which they are derived, so they are somewhat insect-friendly if you like ants, the only insects that seem to use the nectaries. 

Paeonia anomala  - a species peony (ant on bud in left background)

Hybrid peony flowers are very showy, but don't seem to be especially attractive to bees. Still, we have two hybrid varieties based on different species, Paeonia officinalis ‘Anemoniflora Rosea’ and Paeonia lactiflora ‘Dandy Dan’, planted near the front porch and they add a week or two of colour and a summer of attractive foliage to the Home Bug Garden.

A rose by any other name may be a peony - Meet Dandy Dan

Hybrid peonies tend to be expensive and can be floppy, but seem to have no problem with the Zone 3 winter. Inattention seems to work well too and other than cutting down the dead stalks in the spring, no care seems to be required.

Sterile staminodes instead of stamens in the Paeonia officinalis hybrid

For those who become obsessed with a kind of garden flower, a yearning to collect the species from which the hybrids have been derived is often manifest. This can be driven by interest or snobbishness or both, but for those interested in urban insect conservation there are valid reasons to eschew some hybrids. Often the spectacular display of a hybrid comes at the cost of functionality, such as the conversion of stamens to sterile staminodes in some peony hybrids.

Functional, but still attractive - Paeonia anomala

Well, to make a long story longer, hybrid peonies went into the Home Bug Garden in 2005 and by 2007 the Home Bug Gardener had decided to grow a species peony from seed. The Devonian Botanical Garden has a famous collection of hybrid peonies and also a collection of hardy species peonies. Seeds of one such species were available to supporting members; and so, seven pots with seeds of Paeonia anomala went out to overwinter in the Fall of 2007. In the Spring of 2008, though, not a single seedling emerged. Alas and alack, but no sense in wasting the soil in the pots which was recycled around the garden. Then in May of 2009, Anomalous Peony seedlings began sprouting all over the Home Bug Garden! 

Worth a 6 year wait?  Paeonia anomala

Now, four more years latter they are in bloom - and entirely through serendipity (which is how I prefer to view my bungled attempt to germinate peony seeds) - the Home Bug Garden woodland was graced by four scattered clumps of blooms of attractive magenta to pink flowers above feathery foliage. Given the late and cold Spring of 2013, it is hard to say when one might expect them to bloom in a more normal year, but this year the plant in the most favourable spot started opening on 20 May and one in the most shaded spot still has one flower in bloom (2 June). The hybrid peonies are still in bud, so I suppose the Anomalous Peony extends our peony season, and more importantly for the HBG pollinators, provides another early spring source of pollen and nectar.

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.