The Bugs in the Backyard: Two Bees, Or Not Two Bees...

I forgot what I wanted to talk about...

It was hot today. Day two of what is supposed to be a heat wave (defined as three or more consecutive days above 90ºF). We did what we normally do during heat waves, go to a movie. When we came out of the theater it was about 20 degrees cooler than when we went in, and pouring rain. Then we drove the 11 miles to our home and found out it was about ten degrees warmer than it had been at the theater, and had barely sprinkled. I guess that is what you get with scattered showers.

I waited until after the movie to do my bug walk, because I don't like walking around outside when it's hot, and from my observations, the bugs don't much care for it either. However, they didn't like it much better when I did my walk, because I had a hard time finding bugs. This is getting to be a too-common refrain. I hope it's not boring you to hear it, but it is boring me to be living it. I should be taking 400 pictures every day at this time of year. Today I took almost 300, but most of those were of two bees. The last few days it's been fewer than 200. I don't know why I am not finding bugs, because it doesn't seem to matter what time of day I go looking, or what the weather is like. I don't know if it has to do with the lack of rain this spring, or something about our winter. Or if someone nearby has used some nasty pesticide that is affecting the bug population in a wide area. It's disturbing, though. I was sitting outside on the back porch steps around dusk and I could see a dragonfly zooming around above the backyard. That's great, but it shouldn't have been one dragonfly. I should have seen half a dozen or so (and some bats. I hardly ever see bats anymore, but that's another problem). I think the biggest sign that there's something off about it all is that off all the milkweed in my backyard, I saw only one bug on one plant. There are flowers blooming that have no bugs on them - no bees or anything else.

This is not the way it is supposed to be.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

This is the bug on the milkweed today. It might be a plant bug (i.e. Hemiptera) of the genus Lopidea, of which there are many species, this particular one not being identified in my book.

I have some beautiful, pink flowers in my backyard that are thriving this year, with so very many blooms, and aside from a lot of crab spiders, I hardly ever see anything on them. With so many blooms I would expect tons of bees and other pollinators, but I rarely see any bugs at all. So today it was exciting to find not one, but two enormous bumblebees on the flowers. You are about to be inundated with pictures of these two bees:

Hmmm... Here's the thing about these flowers. They are in clumps on the stem, and they have a long neck, at the top of which are the petals. The anthers and stigmas just barely stick out of the opening. And apparently, the nectar is to be found at the base of the flower. Now, bee tongues would have to be really long to reach down that tube, so the bees just go right to the base of the flower to get the nectar. That means they are mostly hidden from view of the camera while they do this.

Ah! There we go!

It's all well and good for me to say these are enormous bumblebees, but it's harder to give that impression with a photograph, unless you are familiar with these flowers (I don't know what they are called. They were given to me in exchange for some milkweed pods). But I would say that the flowers are about an inch across. The bees are bigger.

Also, they are too heavy for the flowers to really support them, so there's some clumsiness involved as they try to climb over and around them.

Also, they moved constantly, which means I got a lot of awkward shots. You're seeing the best of them.

Towards dusk, while I was mowing the lawn, I happened to notice that one of the bees had settled in among the flowers. I don't know a lot about bumblebees - next to nothing, in fact - but I have noticed a lot of them just kind of going to sleep (do bees sleep?) on flowers when it gets to be late in the day. I think they are photovoltaic - powered by the sun - so when the sun starts to go down, they wind down, too. Also, they are a bit like human toddlers, taking naps right where they are when they decide they're tired. I eventually found the other bee, too, but it was nestled into a place I couldn't get a good angle of with my camera.

Such gorgeous wings!

Random Bugs:

Young assassin. Either these things have hatched all over the yard, or these babies get around. Impressive, given that they don't have wings yet.

Someone doesn't understand the concept of camouflage.

It was this kind of day. Quite a few bugs that I just couldn't get close to. Oh, and this is on milkweed, by the way, so I guess I saw two bugs on milkweed. This is a scorpionfly. Not because it is venomous, but because of the way its body curves.

The wasps in the garden shed have hatched. They look like the three witches in Macbeth.

Just because I am trying to make a point that wasps are not evil, I took this picture with the camera only a couple of inches away from these wasps, and none of them behaved aggressively toward me.