Time: 2:16 - 2:59 PM
Weather: 70 degrees Fahrenheit, blue skies/fluffy clouds, fairly consistent sunshine
Location: Forest Street - Cambridge, MA
I created a transect along a urban flowerbed, because I had noted several pollinators there a few weeks ago. Unfortunately many of the blooms that attracted them during my last visit had gone to seed, so the area was not buzzing with activity as it had been before.
Point A: The transect began at a marigold plant and extended ten feet along the flowerbed. The marigold was still producing new blooms because I saw many buds and partially opened flowers, but I did not see any pollinators visit this plant or the neighboring hosta.
Point B: There were purple, trumpet shaped flowers, along with the same species but in white. Again, no pollinators that I saw visited these plants.
Point C: There was a creeping succulent of some kind (reminiscent of chicks and hens) that was not in flower, as well as a large bushy herb with spikes of many small white flowers. There were green pepper plants in the back. The spiked plant attracted the most pollinators out of any plant.
Point D: More of the trumpet-like flowers, this time white with red stripes.
Point E: Purple trumpet-like flowers and an sizable eggplant in the back. There was a small eggplant forming and a few of its flowers were still in bloom, but I saw no pollinators go to it.
Point F: There were spent lilies of some kind at the end of the transect, along with a patch of dirt inhabited by clovers and other small weeds.
Possibly a European Honey Bee (Apis mellifera):
Pollinators Spotted (in order of frequency): bumble bees, honey bees, eastern carpenter bees, a small green bee, flies, a wasp of some sort, cabbage white butterflies, and a hover fly mimicking the coloration of the bees.
I also saw a few multicolored Asian ladybeetles, which made sense because there were a good number of yellow and red aphids about. I was really only able to observe the honey, carpenter, and bumble bees at work. They traveled up and down the spikes of white flowers rather clumsily. It seemed as though they wanted to drink from as many flowers as possible. The bumble bees and honey bees where quick to do this, but the eastern carpenter bee was rather sluggish. I am familiar with this species, so I was able to identify it as a harmless male. I got as close as I could to watch him, and even held him a few times. I helped him out when he made it to the end of a flower spike and was frantically reaching, presumably looking for somewhere new to go. He readily grabbed onto my finger and I brought him to an unexplored spike. He did not fly around much, and sometimes he sat almost completely still while gripping onto a flower.
Male Eastern Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa virginica):
Examples of Inductive and Deductive Reasoning:
* Insects are cold blooded and often bask in the sun to get the heat required to move around, so the low number of pollinators is likely due to the cooling weather. This could also explain the sluggish behavior of the large eastern carpenter bee. (Deductive)
* I did not see any pollinators visit the trumpet-like flowers, so this could mean that they are not plants that naturally occur in the area. The bees and other pollinators might be less inclined to visit them, or perhaps do not have an adaptation necessary to reach the nectar of this species. (Inductive)
* The bees will inadvertently transport pollen to nearby flowers on their setae-covered bodies, allowing the plants to cross pollinate and to begin producing seeds. (Deductive)
Possibly a Male Common Eastern Bumblebee (Bombus impatiens):
* There were multiple ladybugs sighted because the flowerbed was full of aphids, which ladybugs prey upon. (Deductive)
Multicolored Asian Ladybeetle (Harmonia axyridis):
Sweat Bees (family Halictidae) - Possibly Bicolored Agapostemon (Agapostemon viriscens):
No comments:
Post a Comment