watercolour – Page 7 – Pencil and Leaf

Entertaining the Euglossas, some notes from the Bee Boarding House

By Val Littlewood December 22, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

Just over a week ago a small, light as a feather, Fed Ex, overnight express box arrived at my door.
If it had contained the crown jewels I couldn’t have been more excited.
Sometimes the best presents are the ones you are expecting.
The little box was from a very Kind Researcher in Southern Florida with whom I had been corresponding about the beautiful and exotic Euglossa Orchid Bees.

I had tracked this Kind Researcher down via the internet and he couldn’t have been more helpful.
His enthusiasm and delight in Euglossas is rivaled only by his enthusiasm and delight in “Lili” a nice little red beetle from Nepal (which has to be another story and another blog post.)

In the box, under layers of bubble wrap, snug and safely packed in little labeled glass bottles, complete with air and overnight honey water snack, were two beautiful Euglossa bees.

“He” and “She” came with an additional supply of honey water, a dropper and full owners manual.

The little female bee just arrived.

Firstly these bees are just GORGEOUS.

They are big and they are an exquisite shimmering blue green with dark, dark wings. They are full of character and I was completely entranced by them. My simple plan was to simply take some photos and simply open the box and let them go. Everybody happy … well, except that is for the Invasive Species agency.

Unfortunately for the bees and for me, and although they live happily dancing around the fire bushes in Fort Lauderdale they were not allowed to fly free here.
In fact these bee are not supposed to be in Florida at all.
But having crept in from Central America, maybe as unwitting on board stowaways or in nests in exported timbers they have now established a handsome presence in the south.

The repercussions of their arrival are as yet unknown.
Now I do understand these concerns and have no desire to be the main culprit in an orchid bee takeover of Orlando’s leafy suburbs. Visions of these sturdy little, armour clad, bees, elbowing out the natives, however aesthetically pleasing, are not good.
But there were only two alternatives.

The first unthinkable and unspeakable one involved the freezer, the other was to send them back, which seemed by far the best idea. However my Kind Researcher was away for a few days and so the Euglossas had to stay.

The Male Euglossa Bee

Bee Palaces and Bee Entertainment

So how does a bee novice entertain 2 Euglossa bees? I must say here and now that I hate things in cages.
Birds and bees are things of air and sun and space and meant to fly. But these bees had to be contained.

On day one, we had the photo shoot and they were confined to some large glass tumblers, but that’s not much room for a lively bee, so I made them some more spacious homes in big plastic containers in an effort to keep them temporarily happy. But how do you know if bees are happy?
Like any good hostess I read and re read everything I could about them, what they liked to eat, what they liked to do. I noted, inwardly digested and committed to memory the list of flowers they liked. I did my 6 mile round trip to the Gardens to steal the exact exotic blooms from the butterfly garden.

Long tubular flowers whose deeply hidden nectar reserves would exercise their extremely long tongues. I did this just for them. I bookmarked the page that described the collection of mud and resin by the female for her burrow, and brought earth, water and hollow twigs in case nest building instincts were pressing.
I underlined the passages in my Kind Researcher’s article about the astonishing scent gathering of the males from orchids and so I procured eucalyptus leaves, allspice leaves and a clove for him to play with, just to reassure him that I could find substitutes.
I set up twigs and leaves and hiding places and of course an endless supply of honey water in little pots made from tinfoil. In short, I laid at their little bee feet the bee equivalent of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

“He”, just visible by the yellow daisy, clinging to a live oak leaf, sleeping off another honey water binge.

The responsibility weighed heavily on me. I fretted.
Was sleepless and concerned.

We had cold inclement weather which meant moving them around the apartment from one sunny spot to another. They loved the warmth and the sun, it seemed to cheer them up, just as it does us humans.

Honestly, if these creatures had been the very last golden bees from the very last golden beehive from the very summit of Mount Athos, they couldn’t have had more loving care and attention lavished upon them.
My rewards?
Well to the casual observer not obviously substantial.
They didn’t perform tricks or learn their names. The male who I christened Chris, spent most of his day loafing around, either adjacent to, or in, the honey water pot, drinking copious amounts and then “resting”.

His amazing long tongue mopping up a honey water spill.

“He” was however particularly endearing and stomped purposefully around his enclosure with his Cossack trousered hind legs. At night “He” found a leaf or petal to hang onto and ”slept” with his jaws firmly clenched and antennae at half mast.
But “She”, carelessly rejecting my sweet smelling flowers, my mud and hollow twigs, spent much time perched on the top most leaf of her palace garden, glaring at me malevolently or exerting huge amounts of time and energy trying to burrow out, biting fruitlessly at the plastic container and shredding bits of paper, which nearly broke my heart.
Every bone in my body ached to lift the covers, open the windows and say “ Go …Fly..”

“She” glaring.

It was a long four days. The day came for their planned return.. they were alive and well and easily coaxed into their little well provisioned travelling compartments.
I took my buzzing box to the post office where to my silent dismay the Fed Ex lady turned the parcel upside down and slapped the shipping label on the bottom with a resounding thwack. “

They are bees” Chris said on the way home “ They are fine upside down”.
I slunk home and emailed the Kind Researcher, imploring him to lie to me if they arrived stiff and still in the morning.
According to his anxiously awaited email they arrived alive and kicking..

“I took them to a firebush and released them. The male flew off immediately while the female hovered in front of me for a few seconds before flying off.” …

Kind Researcher, you wouldn’t lie to me… would you?? Facts and a film about these enchanting little orchid bees tomorrow.

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Bee No 17: The Orchid Bee, Euglossa viridissima

Watercolour on Arches 300 HP, image size 3 inches

The Hardworking Honey Bee: Apis mellifera

By Val Littlewood December 18, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

I am getting very short of time as all 16 bees have to be in the post today along with a small book, luckily my painting is slightly ahead of my posting. I was so caught up in discovering the “other bees” that I almost forgot to include a Honey Bee in this set.

The trouble with writing about the Honey Bee is where to start and when to finish. Should it be about their incredibly organised society, their complicated navigation systems, the delightful waggle dance, or their gift to us of delicious honey.. and that’s without even considering honey bee lore, superstition and symbolism. All that will have to wait for next year.

Hmmm.. I am afraid that this bee thing will not come to an end at Christmas, as I now have a couple more projects to do and will be getting back to my bee books, cards and more paintings.

But I may take a short break.. unlike the Florida Honey Bees who I saw only yesterday, busy in the Rose Garden at Leu. With flowers still abundant and temperatures mild they carry on regardless. Northern bees are not so lucky and may have to overwinter in some very harsh conditions. Today I am reading of heavy snow in the UK and thinking about friends, family and bees.

Winter Snuggling for the Honey Bee.

Snowed up, frozen conditions are not good for bees. Apart from hoping for a warm break, warm enough for the bees to leave the hive to attend their own call of nature, there is the problem of keeping warm.
Hives can be wrapped and insulated but the bees have to work hard at keeping warm.
Here is a seasonal passage from “Winter for the Bee-Keeper” a chapter from Stephens Buchman’s excellent “Letters from the Hive”.

“Throughout the long cold months, the bees congregate in what is called the winter cluster, a tight sphere of bee bodies forty thousand strong usually located near their stored cache of honey. They are literally huddling to keep warm. Its called thermoregulation, and the bees are expert at it.
By eating honey then shivering their flight muscles without moving their wings they can raise their internal body temperature significantly.
Revving their mini engines keeps not only individual bees warm but their neighbors as well. The temperature will not dip below 68 degrees F within the cluster. When bees in the outermost layers start feeling chilly they push their way deep into the centre, the warmest part of the cluster. Wouldn’t you?”

A snowy UK beehive from the Derbyshire Daisybank Apiaries, in the UK here.
I know I have some beekeepers amongst my readers, I wonder how you are doing this winter? I am off to the post office now… all we have here is heavy rain…

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Bee No16: the Honey Bee: Apis mellifera

Watercolour on Arches HP 300, image size 3.5 inches.

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.

BOB, The Gentle Blue Orchard Mason Bee : Osmia lignaria

By Val Littlewood December 12, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

The headline that first caught my eye when I started reading about these bees, says it all.. “This Bee Is Gentle” … A fact that is reiterated again and again, here is a quote from “The New Mexico Native Bee Pollinator Project” calling on gardeners in NM to help make “bee corridors”;

“Gardens for the more flamboyant hummingbirds and butterflies have become popular; now the bees need our support. There’s a fear factor with bees however, even among nature lovers.
Honey bees sting because they have a treasure trove to defend, and a queen who lays all of the eggs. Not so with native species: the vast majority of them are solitary bees who ARE VERY DOCILE and do not sting unless they are handled roughly.

When we become educated about our bees, a new understanding develops that they can be both safe and a delight to have around.”

This comes from the USA site Pollinator Paradise which has as much information about Blue Orchard Mason bees and other helpful native bees as you could ever wish for. It is run by Dr Karen Strickler who I have to thank for information, samples and pointing me in the right direction for my research on these bees.
Orchard bees have many champions and I have been amazed by how many suppliers are selling mason bee items, you can buy mason bee homes, which come in many different varieties from high rise blocks to bundles of straws; you can buy mason bee videos, mason bee online courses, and of course the bees themselves which come as little cocoons with full owners manuals.

Blue orchard bees overwinter as dormant adults so you can watch them emerge in the spring ready to start work, For a comprehensive listing of suppliers of everything, go to Pollinator Paradise here. You will be there for hours..!

So why all the fuss? Well this little bee is an ace pollinator of fruit crops and again, in face of the honey bee decline, the native bees are coming into their own.
If you have a small domestic orchard.. apples, cherries and other tree fruit just 50 blue orchard bees will help secure you a good crop.
(These bees are endearingly referred to as “BOBs” by the US Dept of Agriculture and there is a good article about them plus their possible predators here.)

BOB, on apple blossom from Karen Strickland at Pollinator Paradise

Minor mining

Although these are “solitary” bees, with each female making her own independent nest, they are gregarious and like to nest close to each other. They are opportunist nesters and will use old insect holes in wood, nail holes, and spaces in crumbling mortar.
They are not destructive as often thought as they do not burrow into mortar, but just make do!

Their name mason bee comes more from the fact that they seal their nests with mud.. so they make rather than destroy. They also like old hollow canes and can have as many twenty nest cells in one cane. J

ean-Henri Fabre, who I mentioned in the last post had hoped to find some Osmia nesting in the upright hollow reeds used by gardeners and farmers for fencing and supports…..from “Bramble Bees and Others” 1915:

I have often explored them in the hope of finding Osmia-nests. My search has very seldom succeeded. The failure is easily explained. The partitions and the closing-plug are made, as we have seen, of a sort of mud which water instantly reduces to pap.
With the upright position of the reeds, the stopper of the opening would receive the rain and would become diluted; the ceilings of the storeys would fall in and the family would perish by drowning.

Therefore the Osmia, who knew of these drawbacks before I did, refuses the reeds when they are placed perpendicularly.

Smart these bees..!

Drawing by Mike Kridle from Pollinator Paradise here

The Orderly Queuing of Bees.. with just a bit of nipping and shoving.

The tubular nests are fascinating and it seems that the size of the bee may depend somewhat on the size of the tube. The bee painstakingly makes each cell, bringing pollen and honey to each, lays her egg, seals the cell with mud, then moves on.
The lava will eat the provisions, spin a silk cocoon and stay in this safe house until the spring. In a way that is still not understood the lava knows which way to face before it spins the cocoon, facing backwards would be a disaster as there is only one way out.
I detected a problem here… if the first bee at the back of the nest develops first how does it get out when its younger siblings are still in their cocoons?

“Bees of the World” by Christopher O ‘Toole and Anthony Raw explains:

“Because of the linear arrangement of the cells ..the youngest bee emerges first, followed by the progressively older bees. However as may be expected the oldest bees in the deepest cells often awake from their winter dormancy first.

An older bee is thus likely to meet with a still dormant bee in the next cell between it and the nest entrance.The problem is solved as follows: when the bee has bitten through the partition into the rear of the next cell it bites its way through the cocoon of the bee in front.
If the occupant is inactive the bee nips the rear of its abdomen. This awakens the second bee which begins to vibrate its wings.. Nipping is repeated if necessary until the bee nearest the entrance starts to bite its way through the nest enclosure.”

This is an empty cocoon which Karen Strickler kindly sent me.
It is a beautiful translucent thing, light but very strong and fibrous.. just 1/2inch long

It occurs to me that Orchard bee cocoons complete with housing would make a wonderful Xmas gift for the keen gardener and nature loving child.. and me… (taps Chris on shoulder!)

If you in the UK there is lots of advice in the Nigel Jones’s excellent “Solitary Bees” pages here. (interestingly Nigel appears to be a cat)

Bee Friendly Gardens

Dr Strickler has some good advice for creating a bee friendly garden here.
Attracting these little bees is more about getting the right flowers at the right time, as they are most active between April and July.

Bob sketches

This is a pretty bee, and another challenge as she is a shiny blue/black but also quite a hairy little creature. This is the female. The smaller male has a rather fetching moustache and longer antennae. I am saving him for later.

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Bee number 14: Osmia lignaria, the very dainty Blue Orchard Bee

Watercolour on Arches 300 HP, image 3.5”

Augochlorella Aurata: The Tiny Green Gold Sweat Bee

By Val Littlewood December 9, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

This lovely tiny bee is only 1/4 inch long. Augochlorella aurata is another one of the ancient family of Hallictid “sweat” bees but much smaller than my cheeky little Agapostemon from a couple of weeks ago.

I am sure I would never have seen it in the wild but this bee came to me in a fascinating selection of native research bees very kindly sent to me by Sam Droege who works at the excellent Patuxent Wildlife Research Centre in Maryland.

The centre is an important international research facility for wildlife science, helping improve the understanding of native species and natural resources.
Do visit their comprehensive and fascinating website that has so much information about wildlife in general and the interesting history of the centre, here.

We may think that concern about our native species and agriculture is fairly new but back in 1934 the centre was set up under the direction of the appropriately named Mr. J. N. Darling,

“The original idea of the station visualized a demonstration area stressing the importance of the relationship of wildlife to agriculture.”

Sam Droege is, amongst other things, involved in the development of online identification guides to North American bees and the development of monitoring programs for native bee species.
He contributes to the excellent Discover Life site who are also organising BEE HUNT next year… get involved if you can.

Some facts about the Augochlorella

CLASS: Insecta
ORDER: Hymenoptera, Bees, wasps, ants and sawflies.
SUPERFAMILY: Apoidea. Bees and some wasps.
FAMILY: Halictidae (Sweat Bees)
GENUS: Augochlorella
SPECIES: Augochlorella aurata

They are common throughout all of the USA and can be seen from April-October. They are nesting bees, eusocial and will burrow in rotting wood or well drained soil.
To encourage them, grow native Dogbane Apocynum cannabinum, Fleabane Erigeron strigosus, Slender Mountain Mint Pycnanthemum tenuifolium and the Goldenrods Solidago odora, Euthamia graminifolia.

In return they will pollinate your peppers, strawberries, tomatoes, and watermelons The bees vary in colour considerably.
Sam’s bee is a fugitive dark bronze, clad in gold/green armour, looking black until it just catches the light and changing with every different direction you look at it.. aurata indeed!

What’s in a name… just for those like me who are fascinated by the etymological origins of the beautiful words that we give our biological and botanical friends :.. Aug.. to enhance, Latin; Chlorella from the Greek word chloros meaning green and ella, the diminutive; Aurātus ‘gilded, golden’, perfect passive participle of aurō ‘gild, overlay with gold’, from aurum ‘gold’.

How very beautiful…

A sketch for the pose..

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Tiny Green Gold Sweat Bee: Augocholrella Aurata

Watercolour on Arches HP. image size 3.5”

Anna’s Anthidium: Bee No 12:The Wool Carder Bee

By Val Littlewood December 5, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

Over the last few weeks I have been writing to various people to get some help with my bee paintings.

I like to work from real models if possible and thought one way round this was to beg or borrow some spare bees from researchers. Anna from Anna’s Bee World who I have mentioned before and who helped me with the blue wasp identification has very kindly sent me a couple of samples, one of which was this beautiful Anthidium.

It is wonderful to have such good reference. Thank you Anna.

Seeing these striking black and yellow markings, you could be forgiven for thinking this bee was a wasp.
This is the Wool Carder Bee, Anthidium sp so called because they “card” the wooly covering from leaves to use as nest material.

The female has five sharp teeth on her mandibles with which she bites through the downy fibers. She then rolls them into a ball, tucks it under her body and carries it back to the nest .

‘A female Anthidium manicatum commences cropping the woolly tomentum of a leaf ‘ from a series of photos by Neil Robinson BWARS here.

There is a very good article about Anthidium manicatum from Insectpix.net here

These bees are members of the Megachile family whose females carry pollen on the underside of the abdomen in the scopa (stiff hairs). This is quite different from other bees who carry the pollen on their hind legs.
The male bees are territorial and armed with three spikes at the end of their abdomen.
They will use these to deter other insects while patrolling their patch and keeping a lookout for females. They nest in pre existing cavities, often in old plant stems, laying eggs in their downy nests and providing pollen balls for the hatched larvae.

I am always struck by the lack of affectionate writing about nature these days. Books and websites tend to be either simply factual or rather vague.
I generally try to find good writing from an earlier time where there is still that sense of wonder. It was nice to discover that the great writer and entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre shared my view!
He was criticised by his contemporaries for his gentle and colloquial style of writing.. here is his excellent reply:

“Others again have reproached me with my style, which has not the solemnity, nay, better, the dryness of the schools. They fear lest a page that is read without fatigue should not always be the expression of the truth. Were I to take their word for it, we are profound only on condition of being obscure.”

and here he writes about the Little Wool Carder Bee, which he calls the Cotton Bee:

We have but to see the nest of a Cotton-bee to convince ourselves that its builder cannot at the same time be an indefatigable navvy.
When newly-felted and not yet made sticky with honey, the wadded purse is by far the most elegant known specimen of entomological nest-building, especially where the cotton is of a brilliant white…
No bird’s-nest, however deserving of our admiration, can vie in fineness of flock, in gracefulness of form, in delicacy of felting with this wonderful bag, which our fingers, even with the aid of tools, could hardly imitate, for all their dexterity.
I abandon the attempt to understand how, with its little bales of cotton brought up one by one, the insect, no otherwise gifted than the kneaders of mud and the makers of leafy baskets, manages to felt what it has collected into a homogeneous whole and then to work the product into a thimble-shaped wallet.
Its tools as a master-fuller are its legs and its mandibles, which are just like those possessed by the mortar-kneaders and Leaf-cutters; and yet, despite this similarity of outfit, what a vast difference in the results obtained!

Fabre wanted to try to see how the bees manipulated the wool to make the nest and so replaced their reed homes with glass rods. It worked for some bees but not others:

For four years I supplied my hives with glass tubes and not once did the Cotton-weavers or the Leaf-cutters condescend to take up their quarters in the crystal palaces.
They always preferred the hovel provided by the reed. Shall I persuade them one day? I do not abandon all hope.

There is much much more of his delightful writing about the Wool Carder Bee here, part of the excellent website about Fabre complete with electronic texts: http://www.efabre.net/

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There are many different species of Anthidium and they have beautiful distinctively different patterns. I have spent quite a long time looking at the patterns and feel I really need to paint them all.

I was asked how I worked on these paintings, so this is my set up for the Anthidium. I will record a close up step by step if I can remember.
I often intend to, for my own records, but normally get so engrossed that I just work from start to finish without stopping.

I have a little magnifying “third hand” which helps hold the bee in position and I used the back of an old picture frame as a small sloping board.
After the initial sketches to determine the position, (in this case I really wanted to show off the beautiful markings on the abdomen) I draw the image lightly on the paper and then with the bee next to me, a good light and a lot of patience, I work on the painting in stages.

I have 2 good W&N series 7 sable brushes sizes 0 and 00 and some cheaper synthetic ones for the initial washes. This painting took 5 hours once I had the image drawn on the paper. There are more details and more colours than show in the low resolution scan which tends to flatten the colours rather.. but it does give an idea.

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Bee No 12: The Wool Carder Bee, Anthidium sp.

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

Tag: watercolour