Back in 2021 we started some native wildflowers from seeds. Since they are perennials they didn’t really fill out until the next year, though a few plants produced a scattering of flowers in their first year. One of of the species we planted was the aromatic aster. I chose it because it was supposed to be an especially late blooming and drought tolerant species (we’re mostly in a wetland, but had one dry area to plant) and by early November of last year it was the last aster still blooming. (To be fair, the most exuberantly blooming plant was in a favorable spot for soaking up late day warmth, and nicely mulched, which does help extend the growing season.) It was also one of the last few flowers blooming in general, so not surprisingly, it attracted the attention of all the remaining pollinators and concentrated them in a small patch of flowers. In particular, the asters were covered in bumble bees.
It was pretty easy to get some good pictures of the bumble bees since there were a whole bunch of them and they didn’t seem at all concerned about having a camera right next to them.
So many bees concentrated together in this patch sometimes led to bees foraging in close quarters…
These two got a little too close, and are trying to fend each other off here.
This little halictus bee also wasn’t too comfortable with having a big bumble bee wandering up behind him.
Another halictus bee resting on a flower. She hung out on this flower for quite a while.
There were a couple of drone flies hanging out in the midst of all the bees. Drone flies are a type of hover fly, also known as flower flies (and both names are quite accurate).
After the encounter with the bumble bee this halictus bee decided to groom himself and have a little rest, giving me a particularly good opportunity to take his portrait.
There were a few of these tiny, colorful agapostemon bees darting around. They’re tricky to photograph because they’re fast, but I noticed they would pause and rest every once and a while, so I managed to get a couple nice pictures of them.
In our ‘meadow’ area, back by the woods, there are a couple species of St John’s wort growing; the common St John’s wort, and the larger Kalm’s St John’s wort. The Kalm’s St John’s wort is large enough to be called a shrub, and has been covered with bees foraging on its flowers.
Kalm’s St John’s wortCommon St John’s wortBumble bee with pollen, Kalm’s St John’s wortHoney bee with pollen on Kalm’s St John’s wortHover fly on Kalm’s St John’s wortBumble bee with pollen, Kalm’s St John’s wort
Leafcutter bee (megachile sp) and bumble bee (bombus sp) with pollen on thistle
There are at least three different species of wild bees that nest within a few feet of my back door. Most people never notice that they’re there. Most wild bees are solitary, meaning that they don’t live in colonies. Instead, the female bees build nests and provision them with nectar and pollen and lay an egg or eggs in them. Two of the three outside my back door are solitary, but one is social, meaning that they do live in a colony and even they are very discreet.
Two-spotted bee (melissodes bimaculata)
Two-spotted bee (melissodes bimaculata) drying off on a leaf after a rain shower
The first bees I noticed nesting outside the back door were two-spotted bees, or melissodes bimaculata, as I usually think of them. (I didn’t learn the common name when I first identified them, and I assumed they probably didn’t have one since most common names for bees don’t refer to a single species; they refer to a group of related species. A year or two later, I came across the common name.) These bees have been nesting in the vicinity of the back door since we moved here, which means they’ve probably been there longer than that. Two-spotted bees are solitary bees that nest in the ground and emerge late in the year (I have not even seen any of them yet this year). They usually start to appear at about the time our lemon balm starts to flower, and I frequently see them foraging on it. They are named for the two rectangular spots on the back of the abdomen of the females (bimaculata also means two spotted).
Two-spotted bee (melissodes bimaculata) with pollen on lemon balm flowerTwo-spotted bee (melissodes bimaculata) resting on lemon balm flower. You can see one of her two spots in this picture.
Leafcutter bee (megachile sp)
Leaf cutter bee (megachile sp) cutting maple leaf
The next bees I noticed were the leafcutter bees. They are not nearly as consistent about nesting in the same spot every year, but there was at least one nest three years ago, and several nests this year that I’ve observed. They’ve certainly been around other years, but I wasn’t able to spot exactly where they were nesting. Leafcutter bees are also solitary, and they build their nests out of pieces of leaves that they collect. They roll the leaves up into a tube, and divide the tube into sections that each will contain one egg and its food provisions. I enjoy watching them forage since they and the other bees in their family are the only bees to store the pollen they’ve collected on the underside of their abdomen, often causing them to hold it up high so that the pollen they’ve collected doesn’t get brushed off.
Female leafcutter bees have large jaws for clipping leaves, which they use to build their nests
Bumble bee (bombus sp)
Bumble bee with pollen, hanging from comfry flower
The third bees to make their nest right outside my door are the bumble bees. These are social bees, and there is one colony living at the edge of the lemon balm patch. They live underground and there is no obvious hole leading to their nest, so they are basically invisible… much like the other bees in this list. I think I was expecting them to be slightly more noticeable since they are social, and honey bees and yellow jackets (a social, sometimes ground nesting wasp) are both fairly noticeable. Both have a steady stream of traffic at their entrance and the yellow jackets do have a noticeable hole when they nest in the ground. But the bumble bees have one or two bees coming and going every few minutes and nothing to see to indicate they’re there otherwise.
Bumble bee peeking out from behind blue vervain
Bumble bees spend the warm months of the year living as a colony, and in the fall they raise a new batch of queens which hibernate over winter and start new colonies in the spring. The old queen and colonies don’t overwinter. Because of this, the colonies are in different locations each year.
Tomatoes are tricky plants to pollinate, but bumble bees have mastered the technique by vibrating their wings at the exact frequency to cause the flower to release its pollen. You can often hear them doing it if you watch them forage.
