sketch – Page 10 – Pencil and Leaf

Signs of Spring: American Robins

By Val Littlewood January 30, 2010 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

I have been tidying up my work room today and found some sketches that I made last week.
I had been to Leu and sketched these birds, then had got sidetracked by bee stuff and forgot all about them.

Also I had no idea what they were. It was a nice sunny day after all the cold weather and I heard the birds before I saw them. Flocks, of what seemed like hundreds, were wheeling round and round, screeching and chattering, something that I haven’t seen here at the Gardens before.

The action appeared to be centered around the huge camphor trees which line one of the walkways and as I came closer I could see the birds were busy eating the little black berries.
They then flew off to the nearby path to drink from a puddle of water and then rushed back to the tree again for more berries.
You can hardly see the Robin sitting on the branch, but you can see all the camphor berries!

The ones on the ground were quite distracted while drinking so I was able to do a few sketches and could see they had reddish breasts and a white ring around the eye…

I know that my USA readers will probably be aghast at my ignorance, but please don’t forget that I am a Brit, so the word “Robin” to me means a little chirpy little bird that comes and sits on your wheel barrow in the garden.
These American Robins are big! …and I now know they are members of the Thrush family

Gathering for migration

But what is most interesting to me is that I realise now I was probably seeing these nice little birds getting ready for a northerly migration, stocking up and getting fit and fat, although some do seem to stay in their own neigbourhood over the winter.
While I was researching I found this website: American Robin,Journey North where you can track the Robins’ journey north and participate in recording their progress.

So, three little Heralds of Spring especially for my northerly, ice and snow bound, blog readers. I want you to know that the Florida Robins are looking well and will soon be on their way!!

The Curious Horn Faced Osmia Bees

By Val Littlewood January 21, 2010 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

While making some more notes on British bees, I was interested to read more about the funny little horned, female Osmia rufa.
The Osmia family in general are a really delightful bunch, not only hard working pollinators for your fruit trees but gentle too and ideal bees to keep in the garden.

I painted Osmia lignaria, the Blue Orchard bee for Deborah but that particular species is hornless.
The “horns” in question are two small protuberances which can be seen (if you get very up close and personal with the bee) just above the mandibles.

It seems they are used for shaping the mud which this clever little bee uses to build her nests, hence the common name “mason bee”.
The male O rufa on the other hand sports a fine white “moustache” and has longer more elegant antenna than the female.

I also remembered that I had a specimen of Osmia cornifrons which Karen Strickler at Pollinator Paradise had kindly sent me along with O lignaria.

This bee also has the curious horns on the female’s face. It’s not a native USA bee but was introduced from Japan in 1977 to help with orchard pollination. With the help of a magnifying lens I was able to make this drawing of the female cornifrons’ head complete with horns.

Osmia cornifrons face

She is much hairier than her rufa relation. Then a couple of studies of the Osmia rufa… cute male head at the top and female at the bottom. .

Osmia rufa faces, male and female

The female also has huge jaws which she uses to collect mud for the nest and presumably to make the nests too. I don’t have time to write more today but will return to these nice little bees very soon with more info and more drawings….

More about Paper Wasps, Gangling Friends of the Gardener

By Val Littlewood January 15, 2010 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

I have been reading more about paper wasps today and had no idea there were so many species.

When I first tried to identify mine, I was looking, mistakenly, under the Polistes genus.

It was at wonderful Bugguide.net that I eventually found my little friends in the Mischocyttarus (pronounced “Mis-k-sit-ar-us”) section.
Mine are Mischocyttarus mexicanus cubicola.

There are 2 other species, Mischocyttarus Navajo, and Mischocyttarus flavitarsis (Western Paper Wasp) which can be seen in the USA. They are tropical wasps so are confined to mainly Southern parts, but I have to say that my little colony has survived these recent Arctic temperatures very well.

The majority of paper wasps seen in the USA are Polistes genus wasps and the two are superficially very similar. The main difference is the mid section between the abdomen and the thorax (which is curiously called a petiole .. as in a leaf stem).
In the Mischocyttarus wasps this section is considerably longer and thinner. Both wasps construct the distinctive umbrella-shaped, chewed papier-mâché nests which hang by one or more stalks from man made or natural structures.

Good for the garden!!!

They are very beneficial insects to gardeners because they are natural pollinators of flowers and prey on a variety of insect pests, including caterpillars, flies, and beetle larvae. Think natural biocontrol.
The adults only feed on nectar, giving their insect prey to the developing lava.
Yes, they will sting but are not considered aggressive and will only do so if sorely tried. Even my nose to nose camera work didn’t upset them too much.

This is from a very nice supportive Paper Wasp article at Bug of the Month written by Louise Kulzer:

“Paper wasps have a special liking for umbelliferous plants. Having chewing mouthparts, they are not able to reach far for nectar, as bees can. Umbels have shallow nectaries, and make suitable fast food stops.
Dill and fennel are especially good, but parsley, parsnip or carrot gone to seed are useful too.
So do yourself a favor this fall – let some umbels flower, and be prepared for the gangling paper wasps to grace your garden.”

And there is a good piece on natural pest control from “Small Farm Permaculture and Sustainable Living” with this accompanying photo and some extra words of wisdom.

“Treat all spiders with love and care and provide rocks or logs around the garden to encourage the crawlers”

How to pose a paper wasp? ”

I have done quite a few more sketches today and have been thinking about how I want to pose this wasp for a colour study. It’s an interesting problem because the way I position it will influence how it will be perceived.
I want to show the beauty of it but perhaps not the threatening side. In the bottom drawing below, the lowered head and thorax is a predatory pose, as is the front faced stare.

so I considered more of a top view which shows off the beautiful markings and disengages that baleful look.

Here I turned the head to give a bit more movement and a nicer line and I was almost sure I was going to paint this one .. so made a few more detailed sketches.

However , my final decision was made late this morning after I had been to pay the wasps a visit. I watched a wasp land on top of the wall and turn its head to look at me.
This seemed a perfect pose , looking round rather than full on. I don’t think there can be much upward movement in the head of a paper wasp because of the hard carapace of the body, but the turned head just gives the wasp a little more personality and some, not too threatening, eye contact.

I like to see the eyes of things.
By nature they seem curious and watchful creatures and very aware of your presence.

And I did get a couple of head studies done. I am fascinated by the eye shape.

Conversations with Paper Wasps

By Val Littlewood January 14, 2010 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

It was warmer yesterday, just a bit.
Over the cold spell I have become more and more fascinated with the little paper wasps. I go and check regularly on their progress and, hoping that the same works for wasps as for bees, I tell them what’s going on and ask how they are.

I have to tell you that they are not easy to see because their nest is tucked right underneath the handrail of the concrete balcony, you have to bend double and look up, then you are more or less face to mandible.
Yesterday I spent some time with them. The conversation went something like this:

“Hi. How are you doing today? It was very cold last night wasn’t it?’’

“Yes it was .. we were outside and you were inside…maybe you hadn’t noticed, we are, fine thanks for asking”.

“I see you are still huddled up together on the top of the nest”

“Yes that’s because it’s cold, stupid”

“It’s going to be warmer today”

“Really. Well, that’s good news because maybe you will stop blowing on us to see if we are alive… really, we are fine”

“Well I am glad to see your are doing OK .. I’m just going to take a couple of photos.”

“ Ok we are not going anywhere much just yet, and it amuses us to see you struggling with those enlarging rings. Have your knees given way yet?

“I am just trying to get one good photo to put on my blog”

“Your what???”

“It’s something I do online. People all over the world will be able to see you. If I make you look attractive it will do wonders for your image.”

“We could certainly use some help there”

“Ok, hold it now.. bear with me. If you could just take your head out of that cell it would help. ..niiiiice ..”

……some time passes during which I look at my pathetic blurry pictures, and then try again.

“Hi, me again, I see you haven’t moved very much in the last hour”

“Well there is not a lot of incentive for travelling when it’s cold enough to freeze the wings right off your body and we only have a small nest here to walk around.. So what exactly do you want now. We have been very patient with you. We CAN sting you know.”

“Yes I know, but I have read that you are quite laid back, as paper wasps go.”

“We are, that’s true but every wasp has its limits.. when I shake my wings take it as a sign to go …look I am lifting them now, so hurry up and get that camera out of my face.. and give us another laugh will you? Have another go at pronouncing our name..”

“ Mischocyttarus mexicanus cubicola…..”

Wasp rolls around laughing….

There were maybe 3 reasonable photos and those, along with some bad ones gave me enough to identify these strange creatures and make some sketches. Hopefully more tomorrow.

The Leafcutter Bee: The Can Opener of the Bee World. Megachile sp.

By Val Littlewood December 16, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

If you happen to notice some beautifully cut, circular holes in your rose leaves you may well have some Megachile bees in your garden.

There will be no great damage to your plants and what some may find unsightly, I think is rather attractive.

Also, when you know that the female Megachile is just using the leaves to wrap her little ones in, you would hardly begrudge her a leaf or two, would you?

To help her this little bee is equipped with very strong chewing mandibles which she uses to bite through the leaves. It only takes one or two seconds for her to complete this operation.

Here is a sequence of photos by different photgraphers from the excellent photographic site Arkive: Images of Life on Earth, and the text is from “Bees of the World” by Christopher O’Toole and Anthony Raw.

“Just before the leaf fragment becomes completely detached the female vibrates her wings rapidly so she is already in flight as soon as the leaf is free.
She then flies a short distance and lands on the ground, a stone or a tree trunk while she adjusts her load. If the leaf fragment is longer than broad she uses her feet to fold it lengthways, so she straddles the leaf with its convex surface towards her. She flies back to the nest carrying the leaf in this way.”

There she makes beautifully crafted overlapping nest pockets, a kind of natural origami pot with which she lines her nest.

“She sticks the leaf fragment together by crimping the edges of the leaves so that sap oozes out and this possibly with salivary glue acts as an adhesive.”

I am fascinated by the shape. These individual cells must fit into each other so the bee must know to taper them.
Here is a very nice description from an article by Louise Kulzer from the website;

“Bugs of the Month” by Scarabs: The Bug Society, here

Actually, it’s a bit more elaborate than just lining the nest burrow. Leaf-cutter bees construct several cells from the leaf pieces they collect. The cells are positioned end to end in a long burrow.
Several circular leaf pieces form the bottom, then oblong pieces are placed along the sides to form a “thimble.” This thimble is then provisioned with nectar and pollen, and an egg is laid in it.

Then the bee cuts more circular pieces to close the cell. Once the cell is closed, the bee starts another cell above the first, until the whole cavity is filled. Like all solitary bees, the female leaves the nest after it is closed. The grubs fend for themselves on the nectar and pollen.

The adult leaf-cutter bee is smaller than a honey bee, dark, often hairy, with a prominent pollen basket below. Females are workaholics, and are a delight to watch because, being so intent on cutting leaves, they usually ignore a nearby observer!
The leaf sections are cut with the mandibles, and the bee forms an arc with her head along the leaf edge to make the circular shape. (They remind me a little of an electric can opener, only with much more personality.)

The facts
CLASS: Insecta
ORDER: Hymenoptera, Bees, wasps, ants and sawflies.
SUPERFAMILY: Apoidea. Bees and some wasps.
FAMILY: Megachilidae
GENUS: Megachile

The Megachilae are a huge genus of bee with well over 500 species. The most important North America species is the Alfalfa leafcutter bee Megachile rotundata which is used for alfalfa pollination.
A monster member of this family is Megachile pluto. A female can reach 1.5 inches long.

photo by Stavenn from Wikipedia here.

My bee is Megachile brevis a delightfully smart and perky little bee. The body shape is unusual in that there is a definite upward tilt rather than the more downward curved body shape of other bees.
These bees, like all of the female Megachile species carry dry pollen under their abdomen in the stiff bristly hairs called the “scopa” which in other bees is located on the legs.
I have Sam Droege and Anna to thank again for their help.

There was only one way I wanted to draw this bee. She had to show her stripes and pointed abdomen and the pollen basket, so a side view to show the tilted body shape too.

A friend of mine described her yesterday as “very sassy”!

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Bee number 15: The Leafcutter Bee, Megachile brevis

Watercolour on Arches HP, Image size 3.5 inches.

Bee No 10: Australian Blue Banded Bee: Amegilla cingulata

By Val Littlewood November 28, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

For this project I am putting together a set of bees which hopefully will show their diversity and beauty, so variety in colour and shape and pattern is important.
There are many different species from all around the world and as you would expect Australia has some unusual native bees.
This is the very beautiful Blue Banded Bee which has pale iridescent blue instead of yellow stripes and digs burrows in soft sandstone or clay for their nests.

This is another solitary bee from the same family as the Hairy Footed Flower Bee from the last post.

The facts: CLASS: Insecta
ORDER: Hymenoptera, Bees, wasps, ants and sawflies.
SUPERFAMILY: Apoidea. Bees and some wasps.
FAMILY: Apidae. Bees.
TRIBE: Anthophorini
GENUS:Amegilla
SPECIES: Amegilla cingulata

This website, www.aussiebee.com is a mine of information and is one of many which does its very best to encourage the public to understand and cherish their native bees, underlining their importance in pollination.

This is another bee which performs “Buzz Pollination” (see my buzz pollination post here) and is now being seriously considered as a pollinator for commercial crops of tomatoes, eggplants and kiwifruit, as well as native plants such as Hibbertia, Senna and Solanum.

Up until now, tomato growers in Australia have had to use electronic fertilization methods and steps were being taken to import some European Bumble bees to help with the task.
However the Blue Banded Bee has proved to be very capable and a breeding programme is now being developed.

Do watch this delightful short film from Aussiebee and see the males jostling for position on top of the twig, with a lot of cross leg waving. They will gather together here to rest..if they can agree..

Where and how bees rest at night is a fascinating subject and for another post, but these bees will gather together clinging onto twigs with their jaws.
Here is a photo by Anna Tambour of a ” sleeping” blue banded bee from her post “The Sleeping Bees” which is lovely, as is her blog, Medlar Comfits here.
I particularly like this as it shows her finger nail and gives you an idea of the size of these beautiful bees.

She also includes this quote from another site. Yallaroo Wildlife

“Unfortunately many gardeners have been conditioned to reach for poisons as soon as they see something with six legs and wings.”

Which is probably worth putting at the bottom of every post about bees

This bee had to show off its beautiful stripes. Also, its wings are much more transparent and lighter in colour than some others.

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Bee No 10: The Australian Blue Banded Bee, Amegilla cingulata

Watercolour on Arches HP, size 3.5 inches

The Hairy Footed Flower Bee.. yes really..

By Val Littlewood November 25, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

If ever a bee belonged in the world of the fairies this is it. The amazing Hairy Footed Flower Bee. I have painted the male, with its plumed feathery feet, its Roman nose and its equally endearing Latin name, Anthophora plumipes.

I had not really given much thought to bees’ feet before I started this project but they are wonderful things. See the plumes on the second leg..

photo by Jeffdelonge for Wikipedia here

Anthophora is another large bee genus with over 450 species worldwide. They vary enormously. Some are known as digger or mason bees and make wonderful elaborate homes with mud.
This particular species is an early April bee and particularly long tongued, so able to make the most of tubular flowers such as the spring-flowering Lungwort, Pulmonaria, Comfrey, Symphytum, Cowslips, and the dead nettle family Lamium.

Adrian Knowles, Hymenoptera Recorder for the Suffolk Nature Society has this to say:

“At about 13mm long they are a little smaller than most bumblebees and they fly with very quick wings in a swift and darting flight, frequently hovering in front of flowers and so have a rather different “jizz” to their larger relatives. They are perhaps more reminiscent of rotund hairy hoverflies in their behaviour.
They nest in tunnels excavated in steep, dry soil banks and .occasionally within the crumbling mortar of old masonry, as do several other solitary bees.
Amazingly, they emerge from their pupae in late summer but remain in their sealed nest cells until the following spring – about 6 months spent as an adult just standing still!
The females are all black, with yellow/orange hairs on her hind legs (you may need to look carefully to avoid confusion with bees bearing yellow pollen on their hind legs).
The males are strikingly different, with dark orange/brown hairs towards the front of their bodies, giving way to black hairs anteriorly. “ ………not forgetting those hairy feet!

from Suffolk’ s Box Valley (UK) Nature Website here which will also take you to some interesting books on Suffolk’s Natural History.

The reason for the extravagant hairiness is, of course all to do courtship.
If you are a female Hairy Footed Flower Bee (but without the hairy feet as the females don’t have them), I guess you will appreciate the tender ministrations of your beau as he wafts his hairy feet over your antennae, transferring his own brand of irresistible aftershave as he does.
It’s not quite my idea of romance, but then I am not a bee …yet. Gordon Ramel of the excellent Gordon’s Solitary Bee Pages has another theory …
As the females are notoriously skittish, it is possible that the male covers his mate’s eyes with those hairy feet to calm her down, (or to knock her out with that aftershave)
He tells us more about this game little bee

“The males are territorial and tend to guard a home range which contains either, the sorts of flowers the females like to visit, or a site suitable for nesting.
The male patrols around his home range spending time at each patch of flowers and or nest site chasing off intruders. He is very serious about this and defends his chosen resources from all comers whether they are a competing male bee or not.
To drive intruders away from his range he accelerates straight at them very quickly and rams them with his head, he can knock out insects much larger than himself this way”

You will also find links to some very good illustrations on this page, and Gordon’s Earthlife site is fun and informative and about much more than just bees.

Here is a photo of the lovely black female Hairy Footed Flower Bee with her orange coloured back legs..

The gorgeous female HFFB by rybaros from a Polish entomological site which has excellent insect photos here

This particular species Anthophora plumipes, is most common in the Europe but according to the excellent Discover Life site, after introduction in Maryland they can now be found throughout the Washington DC region.

Look out for them if you live in this area. I spent far too long researching and reading about these bees. Sometimes it takes a long time to collect even a small amount of accurate information. I am going to put a list of useful bee sites on the sidebar soon.

However deciding how to draw this bee was not too difficult. Of course I had to include the feet, that Roman nose and it does have lovely big eyes. I am also getting a little more familiar with bee anatomy so I made a couple of quick sketches just to get the pose right and then got on with the painting.

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Bee No 9: The Hairy Footed Flower Bee, Anthophora plumipes

The Tawny Mining Bee: Andrena fulva

By Val Littlewood November 23, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

Small volcanoes erupting in your lawn in spring are a sure sign that you have some mining bees hard at work, and how very cute they are too.. and numerous.

I must admit my heart sank when I read there are over 1,300 species in the world…which one to choose?

I decided on a European one and one from the USA. From Europe this is Andrena fulva the winsome little Tawny Mining Bee, extremely pretty in two tone russet and ginger, looking like a little bottle brush.

This is the female. the male is not quite so colourful.
The bee world has some very big colourful girls, rather the opposite to the bird world! Photo of the male Andrena fulva by J C Shou, from great photo site Biopix here

Mining Bees or Digger Bees are solitary and “IBRA” the International Bee Research Association has a good PDF about solitary bees here.

This is what they say about Andrena fulva

“The adults over winter in the ground and emerge in the spring. The females dig a tunnel into the ground, hence the need for easily workable soil, where the earth is bare or the grass is short. The tunnels are about 9mm in diameter and descend to a depth of 20 to 40 cm.
At the end of the tunnel the bee will construct an oval cell and provision it with pollen and nectar. An egg is laid in
the cell, which is then sealed up. She then goes on to construct other branches to her tunnel and repeats the process laying about 5 eggs in her lifetime.
On cold days bees need to warm up before they can fly and so females are often seen in the morning sunbathing by tunnel entrances. “

Illustration from “How stuff works” here.

And below, a lovely photo from Dick at www.citybirding.blogspot.com of his little tawny mining bee peeping out of her burrow.. he says;

“Once in their nest they stay quite still just below the opening until you get near and they shoot back down to the bottom of the nest, out of sight”

But, don’t worry about your pristine lawns.. just live with it for a few weeks and enjoy the bees. David Kendall is an Entomologist and has these kindly word for this pretty and useful bee,

“The Tawny Mining Bee (Andrena fulva) is one of several species, commonly seen around gardens in early spring, which dig nest burrows in lawns and similar places.
This bee is about the same size as a honeybee, but covered with fairly dense golden hairs. The female bee makes a small volcano-like mound with the soil excavated from the nest.

There may be many nests close together, giving the impression of communal life, but each female is actually working alone. Nesting activity lasts only a short time (perhaps 2-3 weeks), after which the small mounds of earth around each nest entrance soon disappear, with no permanent damage to the lawn.

Take care not to confuse solitary bee nest mounds with the mounds of earth caused by the nesting activity of ant colonies. Solitary bee mounds have a single large entrance hole in the middle, and by watching for a short while on a warm sunny day, you will see the bees coming and going to collect pollen.
If left alone, these bees will often nest in the same area year after year, and provide an annual service by pollinating your early flowering fruit trees and shrubs (apples, pears, currants and gooseberries) and other garden plants – so helping to ensure good crops later in the year.

from his very nice readable site “Insects and other Arthropods” here

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Some preliminary sketches: I feel I should have included a little volcano and a ray of warming sunshine too.

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Bee No 8: The Female Tawny Mining Bee, Andrena fulva

Watercolour on Arches HP w/col paper: image 3.5 “

Bee No7: The Beautiful Violet Carpenter Bee. Xylocopa violacea

By Val Littlewood November 20, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

This is the companion to Bee 6: the Southern Carpenter Bee, Xylocopa micans.

The Violet Carpenter Bee is one of the biggest bees in Europe and has beautiful blue/violet coloured wings and a big shiny black body. It just had to be included in the set.

The facts: CLASS: Insecta
ORDER: Hymenoptera, Bees, wasps, ants and sawflies.
SUPERFAMILY: Apoidea. Bees and some wasps.
FAMILY: Apidae. Bees.
GENUS: Xylocopa. Large Carpenter Bees
SPECIES: Xylocopa violacea

This bee is common to the Mediterranean and Central Europe and now has been spotted occasionally overwintering in the UK. It has the same bad wood chewing habits as the other Carpenter Bees.
There is another species of furry tan Carpenter Bee the Xylocopa varipucta which is on my list to paint and has been described as like a small flying teddy bear and I may get round to it later. .. so many bees so little time!

Bad news for Bees of Baldwin Park
Yesterday, the tidiness police came round to Lake Baldwin and decreed the chopping down of untidy weeds.
We are allowed an environmentally protected zone as long as it is neat.
A mowing man arrived and the whole of the lovely messy tangle of flowers, grasses and reeds has been razed to stalks and stubble. We had this….

Now this, even this last clump of horsemint in the foreground was gone by lunchtime.

Gone are the Spotted Horsements, the Indian Blanket, the wild Blue and Golden Asters, the Yellow Tickseed, the grassy Bottle Brush, the Morning Glories, the Dog Fennel, the brilliant Scarlet Tassel Flower, the delicate purple headed Hairawn Muhly, the silvery Bushy Bluestem, the small Rattle Box shrubs, the Lopsided Indiangrass whose beautiful feathery tops glistened in the morning sun, the odd black dots of the Rayless Flowers, and various pretty Red Pea flowers, and that is to name just the few that I can identify … but we are tidy now.

Gone too are the singing frogs, the chirruping crickets, the sand wasps, the paper wasps, the clicking dragonflies, the beetles, the snakes, the lizards and a million bugs and flies and worst of all, my bees.

All is silent, still and a bit sad.

Of course it will all be back in due course but it seems a shame.

But back to the Carpenter Bee and a simple sketch to just get the proportions right.

and a colour sketch

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Bee No 7: The Violet Carpenter Bee, Xylocopa violacea

The Gentle Giant of the Bee World, The Carpenter Bee

By Val Littlewood November 17, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

So I have a new love, he is big, black and hairy.
Yes, today I had a real “Ahhh” moment with a Carpenter Bee. On a beautiful sunny morning at Leu the Carpenter Bees were busy,very busy, all over this red flower (which I think is Egyptian Star Cluster, Pentas lanceolata).

The flowers are slight, the bees are heavy, so seeing one struggling to keep its feet, holding out a steadying finger seemed only natural. I thought it would fly away at such an intrusion but this lovely bee was happy to clamber aboard this firmer platform and continue collecting nectar, 4 feet resting on me and 2 on the flower.

They are so busy nectar gathering that they scarcely notice you. I should also add that they do not sting. You see the problem, big bee, small flower.

and three more of these big chaps, trundling across the flower heads.

My bee photos are more luck than anything else. I take a lot, then it’s rather like those “find the hidden animals in the tree” outline drawings in kids puzzle books.. sometimes there is a bee in them and sometimes there is nothing.

This gorgeous handsome bee is Xylocopa virginica, the Common Eastern Carpenter Bee.
It’s the biggest bee in the USA and can be up to a sizeable one inch long.
This one is the all black female taken again at Leu but last week.

Professor Stephen Buchmann writes about bees.
Chris bought me his “Letters from the Hive” and I have found it hard to drag myself away.
Here is a snippet from his very nice article about Carpenter Bees, for the US Forestry Commission’s “Pollinator of the Month” series here.

“These gentle giants get their name from their life history habits of excavating precisely rounded galleries inside wood. Using their broad, strong mandibles (jaws), they chew into dead but non-decayed limbs or trunks of standing dead trees.
Some species, like the eastern Xylocopa virginica, occasionally take up residence in fence posts or structural timbers, especially redwood, and become a minor nuisance.
Inside their rounded branched galleries, they form pollen/nectar loaves upon which they lay their giant eggs (up to 15 mm long). The female forms partitions between each egg cell by mixing sawdust and her saliva together.
These partition walls are very similar to particle board!”

Diagram from”animals how stuff works . here and a photo of their extraordinarily accomplished woodwork

Photo Stephen Buchmann Also accompanying the article is Prof Buchmann’s wonderful photo, demonstrating the huge difference in sizes between the bee species

The smallest and the largest: a Perdita minima on a female carpenter bee’s head. Photo by Stephen Buchmann.

Anna, from Anna’s Bee World, who also very kindly helped me identify my Blue Wasp has this photo on her blog and explains how it was achieved.

This photo was taken by one of my graduate advisors, Stephen Buchmann, who is a renowned bee expert. He has this amazing amazing microscope, and an artful eye.
These two bees are real, but obviously dead. He took a Carpenter bee, which are known as some of the largest bees (gentle giants) and he took the smallest bee in the world (Perdita minima) and glued the small bee onto the antennae of the carpenter bee. He thought it would bee (sorry, had to throw that in) cool to show people the size difference between the largest bee and smallest bee.

It’s the photo you would see in the bee version of the Guinness World Records.
There is a scale bar at the bottom of the photo, but I am not sure what the scale is (1mm?). I couldn’t find that. I assume it is 1mm since Perdita minima usually measures about 2mm in size (0.078 inches).

See Anna’s Bee World here. Two millimeters for the tiny Perdita minima!!!.

I will not be attempting to paint that one. Its rather a shame to see how many sites are dedicated to the eradication of this “nuisance” bee. It seems they don’t actually do too much harm and are so very beautiful and although quite territorial they are not really aggressive (the male bees cannot sting).

I did read that if you want to “move” a Carpenter Bee, you throw a small pebble just past him. He will think it is another bee and go chasing after it. He may not be the sharpest bee in the box then, but his looks are enough to fall in love with.

There are certainly quite a few round here and, having a subversive streak myself, I rather like the idea of them infiltrating the neat timber porches and verandahs of Baldwin Park and setting up some little families there. Their chewing can apparently be heard several feet away. 🙂

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A preliminary sketch: What distinguishes them from Bumble Bees is their glossy hairless abdomen .. and their size!

Tag: sketch