Hap-Bee Halloween!

Today is October 30, and All Hallow's Eve is almost upon us!

Did you know that without bees and pollinators, this fabulous day would be a lot less festive?
But bees and other pollinators are summer things- they visit the blooming flowers and hang out in the garden on warm sunny days. What could they possibly have to do with Halloween?

Let me explain.

Simply put, without bees, we wouldn't have any pumpkins.
You read that right: NO BEES = NO PUMPKINS :(
No pumpkin pie. No carved pumpkins. No roasted delicious pumpkin seeds. Even many of the "Pumpkin Spice" flavorings come from plants that require pollination! (Examples here & here!) What would Halloween be without pumpkins?

In the summer, pumpkin vines have big, gorgeous yellow flowers. The flowers are either male or female. For the plant to produce a pumpkin, the female flowers must receive pollen from a male flower. That's where bees come in!

For most pollination, you may be thinking of honeybees. Honeybees, as well as many other bees, will visit the flowers of pumpkin plants and can provide pollination. But the shining stars of our pumpkin pollination are Squash Bees! If you're like most people, you've never heard of a squash bee, and unless you're personally trying to grow some kind of squash, you had no reason to think about these bees and they wouldn't be living on your property. They are specialists on squash flowers (that's: Yellow Squash, Zucchini, Butternut Squash, Acorn Squash, Pumpkins, and other squashes and gourds) and these bees don't eat anything else. So if you're not growing those plants, no squash bees for you!

Squash bees, courtesy of Nancy Adamson and the Xerces Society. How CUTE are these little bees?
They look very similar to honeybees and are almost the same shape and size.  

These special squash bees have evolved alongside the squash plants, which means they're perfectly adapted to the pollination needs of these plants. The flowers open earlier than other flowers and- not by coincidence!- the squash bees are also wide awake bright and early, before most other bees! The female bee forages on nectar and collects pollen to create a food supply for her young- who won't be born until next year. By midday, when honeybees and bumble bees and other bees are well into their foraging time, the squash flowers have already closed, and the squash bees have retired back into their underground nests.

Squash bees nest in the ground at the base of squash plants, but unlike other so-called "ground bees" (more on those in another post, as most of the time those are yellow jackets and not bees at all), squash bees are solitary. This means you're not going to end up with a HUGE aggressive nest of bees by the end of the summer. The bees' life cycle coincides with that of the squash plants. The bees emerge in summer, and lay eggs and leave a food supply for their young in the ground. Those bees will emerge the following season; thus, no huge build up of a giant nest of bees.

In the solitary bee world, the female bee assumes all roles of a "hive." She forages for food for herself. She is a worker bee. She creates the nest. She lays the eggs. At the end of the season, she dies. The male bees live the party life- all they do is eat and mate. Because these bees just live for one season, a large population doesn't build up over the summer time.

Beneficial ground bees like these are a prime example of why we need to be careful about what chemical products we're using on our property. Most sprays, granules, and drip treatments will soak into the ground, where these bees are nesting.

You can learn more about squash bees and pollination by visiting these sites:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/nov08/bees1108.htm
http://www.ars.usda.gov/Research/docs.htm?docid=16595

And let us not forget the significance of bats!

We often see bats represented in a scary way on Halloween. Bats are important pollinators of many fruit and cacti in the tropics. Here in Virginia, we don't have bats that pollinate our crops- instead, we have carnivorous bats that eat insects and provide essential pest control in our neighborhoods and to our farmers. If we lost our bats, we would definitely notice a huge increase in mosquitoes and other pests.

Let's hear it for our Bats and our Bees this Halloween!!

So... About those wasps...

THE HORROR.

I'll be mentioning solitary wasps a few times on this site, so I wanted to provide a little bit of information here.

First of all, in the photo above, you can see that is a very tiny little wasp (a member of Chrysididae, I believe?) crawling around on my finger. Can they sting? Technically, yes- the females can, anyway. Do they sting all of the time? Certainly not (and this one did not sting me).

These are cuckoo wasps, which means they build their nests in the nests of other insects. Some will lay an egg next to the other insect's egg, and when the wasp baby hatches, it will eat the other insect and/or the other insect's food supply. Some of those insects are pests, so you want parasitic wasps like these around to keep those pests in check. Parasitic wasps are one of the main predators of the invasive stink bugs!

Oh the humanity! WHAT IS IT DOING!?

Here's another solitary wasp mama. She has paralyzed this small caterpillar (both she and the caterpillar were just a little over an inch long) and will carry it to her nesting site, where she will leave it for her young to eat. I haven't actually witnessed this happen very often, so even though I do love caterpillars, I was SO excited to spot this wasp and realize what she was doing. I only had my cell phone with me, but I was able to get this picture before she flew off with the caterpillar. Since this was just a cell phone, I had no macro lens or special zoom or other features- in other words, I was all up in this wasp's business. She didn't become aggressive or try to scare me away- she was definitely more worried about me than I was about her, and made a hasty getaway with her to-go meal.

Here is one more I'll leave in this post. This is another solitary cavity-nesting wasp who didn't mind me getting a close up to her (or him) while she was hanging out on a redbud leaf. Look at those gorgeous blue wings!

Most of the times if you're oberving wasps feeding on flowers (or sometimes even when they're hunting), they're busy doing what they need to do and aren't going to become aggressive and go after you. In general, the only wasps who are aggressive are social wasps who live in big nests/colonies and feel a need to defend their family. How can you tell, just by looking, which wasps are solitary (and thus, more docile and friendly) and which aren't? Unless you know a lot about bugs, unfortunately you probably can't tell just from looking.

Some are more obvious: Yellow Jackets and Bald Faced Hornets. You don't want to mess around with those.

But this post is mainly to point out that not all wasps are "bad guys" or scary- some are, frankly, quite beautiful! And almost all of them are great pest control and beneficial pollinators! Please keep in mind that when you see a wasp, it's not always out to "get you" ;)

Enjoy your day!

-Samantha

Intro...

10/06/2014
Brand new page (and project!!) here!

Have you heard of "Bee Safe Neighborhoods"? It's a really great project where 75 contiguous (or, almost contiguous) homes pledge not to use neonicotinoid/systemic pesticides on their property. The organization's main focus is on the Honey Bee, but since some Bumble Bees are definitely in a state of decline (and possibly other native bees, too), I plan to focus on all bees and other pollinators as well. After all... we know that generally, butterfly gardening = bee gardening, right? So I want to do this in my neighborhood, and if we succeed, we'll be the 2nd Bee Safe Neighborhood in Virginia!

I'm hoping that by starting to organize this in the late fall, I can collect pledges throughout the winter and get people excited about their new neonic-free gardens next spring!

So if you're in Alexandria (specifically Alexandria West and even MORE specifically along Latham St. or Taney Rd., or that general vicinity!) and would like to talk to me more about this, please contact me at PollinatorPlates@gmail.com . 

If we can get a bunch of houses on the south side of Taney to pledge to stop using pesticides- or even just certain kinds of pesticides- imagine how beneficial it would be to Holmes Run and the wildlife in Holmes Run Park. I feel this is especially important for my neighborhood since we are on the edge of a park and I hope folks will be enthusiastic to sign the pledge and commit to a safer yard for our pollinators and other wildlife.

Target area

Here are some of my ideas:

- On Halloween: Dress in my bee outfit and hand out honey sticks and coloring book pages for neighborhood kids and a postcard or flier with info for adults.

- Folks who sign the pledge get a "Protect Pollinators" magnet from me!

- Bee themed garden party on my street's cul-de-sac when all 75 pledges are met.

- Encourage folks to stop by my "hell strip" garden during the spring/summer/fall to check out all of the nectaring bees!

- Hazardous Waste collection day(s) to collect pesticides that people may already have bought, but have pledged to no longer use. I will offer to come pick them up, or leave a bin outside of my house for a day or two to collect the bottles. What can I do with these pesticides after they're collected? I'm not sure what's safe to do with them or how to dispose of them, or if there is anyone who could use them in an enclosed environment, such as a greenhouse, where bees aren't visiting and the soil/runoff won't contaminate local waterways- if so, I could donate them. Someone please help if you have a suggestion! :)

- I am sure one of the first questions I'll get is, "What can I use instead?" If you have that same question, here is a perfect website to check out! 

http://www.growsmartgrowsafe.org/Products.aspx?Category=57695&SearchStr=
I'll definitely add this website to all of the info I'm handing out and make a QR code for it, too, which I may put on CUTE signs in a few places in the neighborhood for quick reference ;)

That's all for now, friends. Not quite as huge of an undertaking as the license plates, and hopefully this won't take as long! :) However, convincing people to part from their beloved and easy-to-find chemicals won't be easy.

I know, I know---- maybe it isn't neonics and other pesticides that are the problem. But you know what? The way I see it.... would it really be such a bad thing to use less chemicals even if they aren't the one and only single problem? Lawns are where the most chemicals are applied nowadays. LAWNS. How about we save those chemicals for big ag, whose job it is to increase yield and feed people, and us homeowners focus on feeding safe nectar and pollen to the little tiny guys and call it squah'!