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The Pollenator: Bee Arthur's Revenge
ceres
When the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderator Mod Emeritus
When the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderator Mod Emeritus
I live in Vegas and have a deck garden; life is hard for those plants and I have put quite a lot of time and effort and love into keeping them alive.
About a month and a half ago I bought a parthenocissus. They're furious climbers and difficult for someone completely inexperienced like me to kill as long as I keep throwing water at it, and in this environment overwatering above the seedling level is a tall order. So I was happy and waiting for the thing to attach to my wall.
It didn't because it needed a transplant and MORE water, which I did and it started to come back. NOW there are tons of holes in it. This has not happened with any of my other plants, and I'm not sure why. I guess those leaves aren't delicious. I couldn't find any mites, worms, caterpillars, larvae, anything.. once I found an inch-worm on a sunflower leaf but it disappeared after a day or two and I haven't seen another since. Once I saw this weird gray bee around it, but Scott looked up gray bees and said they're our friends. So I've been pretty much okay with it hanging out, every so often it will chase me away but whatever. Silly bee, though, I have a miniature rose and a flowering squash, the parthenocissus has no flowers. But that's okay, it'll figure it out and then I won't have to worry about pollenation and everyone wins.
That brings us to today, I saw the bee around and said hi like I always do, told it I was done watering that plant and it was good to go because I talk to bugs I see a lot, and then it hit me. Parthenocissus has no flowers. I watched it for a while and realized that bastard fucking whatever it is is carving up my fucking plant.
I want it the fuck off my plant. I was unaware that bees that look for all the world like gray honey bees ate plants, and I'm kicking myself for not paying attention sooner. I have kids and pets and a downstairs neighbor with a deck below mine and a neighbor across the way on oxygen who is easily asphyxiated, so anything with a hint of poison is completely out.. and anyway I don't want to kill anything. But I DO want to know what this thing is and how to make my plant taste terrible to it.
I'll get a picture of the thing if I can.
@Arch @BugBoy or anyone else who can make it go away without killing everything I hold dear.
About a month and a half ago I bought a parthenocissus. They're furious climbers and difficult for someone completely inexperienced like me to kill as long as I keep throwing water at it, and in this environment overwatering above the seedling level is a tall order. So I was happy and waiting for the thing to attach to my wall.
It didn't because it needed a transplant and MORE water, which I did and it started to come back. NOW there are tons of holes in it. This has not happened with any of my other plants, and I'm not sure why. I guess those leaves aren't delicious. I couldn't find any mites, worms, caterpillars, larvae, anything.. once I found an inch-worm on a sunflower leaf but it disappeared after a day or two and I haven't seen another since. Once I saw this weird gray bee around it, but Scott looked up gray bees and said they're our friends. So I've been pretty much okay with it hanging out, every so often it will chase me away but whatever. Silly bee, though, I have a miniature rose and a flowering squash, the parthenocissus has no flowers. But that's okay, it'll figure it out and then I won't have to worry about pollenation and everyone wins.
That brings us to today, I saw the bee around and said hi like I always do, told it I was done watering that plant and it was good to go because I talk to bugs I see a lot, and then it hit me. Parthenocissus has no flowers. I watched it for a while and realized that bastard fucking whatever it is is carving up my fucking plant.
I want it the fuck off my plant. I was unaware that bees that look for all the world like gray honey bees ate plants, and I'm kicking myself for not paying attention sooner. I have kids and pets and a downstairs neighbor with a deck below mine and a neighbor across the way on oxygen who is easily asphyxiated, so anything with a hint of poison is completely out.. and anyway I don't want to kill anything. But I DO want to know what this thing is and how to make my plant taste terrible to it.
I'll get a picture of the thing if I can.
@Arch @BugBoy or anyone else who can make it go away without killing everything I hold dear.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
ceres on
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Unfortunately I don't know if there's any convenient ways to get rid of them. Wish I could help, but I'm not good for much more than fun facts in this instance.
You sure it's eating the plant and not just using it to hide from deadly Nevada heat?
Vegas area has these ladies
http://www.birdandhike.com/Wildlife/Invert/Ph_Arthropoda/SubP_Hexapoda/Cl_Insecta/Hymenoptera/SO_Apocrita/Megachilidae/_Megachilid.htm
What I REALLY need is a picture of the leaf damage. Leafcutter bee damage is really stereotypical and looks very different than chewing damage, for instance.
As for keeping the bee away...I don't have too many good suggestions. You could catch and kill the bee with a net or something... leafcutters are solitary, so it isn't like you're dealing with a whole colony.
Then problem also is that the bee isn't eating the leaf, so it doesn't care about the taste. It is cutting pieces off to make a home for her babies. She basically cuts a leaf section, rolls it into a tube, stuffs it with pollen, and lays an egg in there.
You could try hanging some bednetting or mesh around the plant, as long as it's kind of fine mesh it shouldn't hurt the plant and the bee won't get to it.
I love bees that won't sting me, and I'm happy to have them around to pollenate and I understand their importance and yadda yadda. And I guess the plant wasn't that expensive if it can't keep up and dies.
Frustrating, though.
Thanks!
Perhaps there is a shrub with a more preferable leaf type you could plant?
http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/3/3/150623
And I'll probably use it as a justification for making phylogenies for the rest of my life.
Phylogenies are cool!
That is the exact bee and that's how the leaves look. It even looks like the same kind of plant. I'll see if I can get a picture in the morning. It took about 3 seconds for it to shear off a piece of leaf and fly off with it.
If they're the same bees Scott was looking at, he said that while they can sting, they really aren't too interested in you if you let them do their thing. I have a pretty bad phobia of bees, but I have absolutely found this to be true with this particular bee. It'll chase me away if I get right up next to it, but it doesn't even follow, just goes back to what it was doing. It's kind of like having a buddy.
So I will leave it alone, and I'll leave the plant there as long as it's alive... maybe even get another if it goes. I really wanted a climber, but I do also like the idea of helping foster a kind of bee that's not doing well as long as it's going to otherwise leave me the fuck alone. If it happens to pollinate some of my plants for me, that would be a nice thank-you.
In the meantime here is a video. It took me a couple tries to get something decent, and by that point she made it known that I was entirely too interested and told me to buzz off.
I also figured out where she's going; it's a branch of that pine tree you can see in the background.
#beefacts!
And bee friends! This is really cool!
I knew I should have named her Beety White.
Problem: She seems to be building her nest on my deck. I would have no problem with this; it's getting to be a million degrees here for the summer, so the door will need to be closed anyway, but
1) She chases me back inside so I can't water, and if I can't water religiously every day she isn't going to have anything to cut up
2) I think, from where she seems headed when she flies, her chosen real estate is a small hole in my bag of potting soil.
I have no idea what to do about this. The watering thing isn't that big a deal, and if I get through today's watering I can do it when it's dark out if I need to. Really the bigger problem is that I need my potting soil, and if that's really what she's doing then I'll either end up destroying her nest or end up unable to use it. Since I can't offer my plants a lot of space and it's so hot I sprang for the good stuff, and I would really like to use what I bought. I looked at the bag after seeing her yesterday and I couldn't find signs of the nest so maybe she's going somewhere else, but there isn't really anything else appropriate for it on that part of the deck. I have other things she could use, she's just chosen the worst possible place on a day when I have so much transplanting to do.
I don't suppose anyone here has experience with relocating a bee's nest..
edit: She has a friend now and neither of them want me out there at ALL.
The second bee is either a different kind or really, really dumb. She's a little smaller, and she keeps going after the moonflower leaves over and over and over... but she isn't strong enough to get through them. Maybe a male? It's also a bit more aggressive and spends more time around the door.
Either put the soil in a sealable plastic tub sometime either when you see the bee out foraging, or the porch is theirs.
In the grand scheme of things killing or displacing one pollinator isn't going to ruin even the local ecosystem of your porch, and you get peace of mind.
WASPS, however, seem to have no problem. Wasps are such assholes, and as far as I can tell have no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
On the plus side it did hasten my purchase of a bug zapper/tennis racket, which I use to kill wasps flies mosquitoes and centipedes.
The paper wasps around my house are pretty chill. I had a nest right next to my front door knob for a long time, until a forgivably concerned visitor smashed it.
I don’t know if they're inherrently docile, or if my merciless chemical attacks on the nests of any that stung me have purged that impulse from the local population. Either way, we have not broken the cease fire in years.
Re: Soil. I vote for surrendering the bag if only so you can take pictures of the nest after it has been vacated.
Yesterday I went out to do some quick deadheading and pick a couple of the small zucchini I tend to get, and I was ready for sprint for the door but no warning buzzing came. So I finished up what I was doing at a reasonable pace and went back inside.
The lack of bees probably has something to do with the fact that it was 106 degrees in the shade yesterday. I tried to look around without touching anything in case doing so would cause an angry bee to launch itself directly into my face, but I really couldn't see any evidence of a nest. I know they burrow, but even by the little hole in the bag I didn't see anything. Today if I can I'll get a closer look, and see if I can get a picture. If she wasn't making a nest, I have no idea what she was doing flying back and forth from there.
Could be she just went somewhere else afterwards that you didn't see. Or further into the bag. Or behind the bag.
Also, apparently these types of bees will die off in about 6 weeks, so at that point if you don't see her anymore I think you're safe to reclaim your soil?
And never look back.
:bigfrown: :bigfrown: :bigfrown: :bigfrown: :bigfrown: :bigfrown: :bigfrown:
That's the reason the hotdog trap works so well, they will always carve off a piece too big to carry back to the hive and fall to a soapy doom. With the way a nest of wasps can decimate a hive of bees, I think of it as doing my part.
I found the nest, by the way. I took pictures, I just need to grab them off my phone.
Wasps are not very good at precision flying. They will scent the soda, come down the neck into the bottle, then when they try to go back up they will decline the center and instead go for the sides. Then they'll just bump into the walls repeatedly until they get tired and drop into the soda. Once they're in the drink it's over.
This works great for fruit flies as well.