Category: wild bees

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Where the Wild Bees Are: Documenting a Loss of Native Bee Species between the 1800s and 2010s | Scientific American

Moritz Stefaner put together a very interesting infographic for Scientific American which succinctly illustrates a variety of wild bee statistics for Carlinville, Ill. At a glance you can see many types of bees have disappeared and that foraging behaviour has drastically changed in the last 120 years.

 

The source for the data comes from this paper: PLANT-POLLINATOR INTERACTIONS OVER 120 YEARS: LOSS OF SPECIES,CO-OCCURRENCE, AND FUNCTION,” BY LAURA A. BURKLE, JOHN C. MARLIN AND TIFFANY M. KNIGHT, IN SCIENCE, VOL. 339; MARCH 29, 2013

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Wild Honey Hunters - BBC documentary with Jimmy Doherty

This doc offers a quick glimpse into the tradition of collecting honey from Apis Laboriosa the giant bee which live exposed on large combs under over hanging rock on the side of cliffs in Nepal.

http://www.veoh.com/watch/v18333696k8pSsNXA

Very interesting to get a sense of bee culture in very different circumstances than I'm accostomed to, even if the emphasis seems to be a little to heavy on Jimmy's experience rather than that of Nepal honey hunters.

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Keeping the Bees: Why All Bees Are at Risk and What We Can Do to Save Them by Laurence Packer

In his book Laurence Packer provides a good overview of the complexity of the challenges all types of bees are currently facing, what this problem means for humans, and how we can help. The book is also intermixed with some fascinating tales from a life of chasing after bees around the world. Well worth the read.

A lecture on the different types of wild bees:

Here's a brief overview by Laurence on creating pollinator friendly backyards:

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Early spring 2011 I walked right past the nesting grounds of what I now believe could be cellophane bees or colletes inaequalis. They were flying very rapidly around some loose sandy soil on a steep forest slope, so without taking a good look I just assumed they were flies.

It was only when I looked at the blooms of the freeman maple standing at the top of the slope that I realized what was happening.

freeman maple and native beePhoto by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

As the first trees had started to bloom the entire hill side had suddenly sprung to life and I felt lucky that this marvel had not completely slipped past my attention.

These bees are also known as mining bees. They are solitary bees which live in individual ground burrows, but many of these bees will set up home right along side each other.

colletes nest areaPhoto by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

When I looked closer at that sandy slope I was able to watch them dig out their homes:

and mate:

I left with a strong reminder to slow down and pay closer attention to the marvellous things happening in front of me.