A Gentle Giant for Pollinator Week

To help celebrate Pollinator Week I am republishing this post from 2015 on Eastern Carpenter Bees/Xylocopa virginica. I've added a few details and refreshed some photos. I hope you enjoy it! xoxogail 

There's probably no other bee that arouses irritation quite like this gentle giant. Just search "carpenter bee" and you will get hundreds, if not thousands of "results" and almost all are about how to get rid of them.

They're very cool critters and I love them even though they have tunneled into my front porch deck and my carport stained posts. We had the porch painted and they don't like it! They continue to nest in our stained carport wood.

 

Robbing a Penstemon

Five interesting facts about this gentle giant.

1. These big beautiful, noisy bees are excellent pollinators. In fact, they are being studied across the globe for pollinating green house crops like passionflower, blueberries, greenhouse tomatoes and greenhouse melons.

2. They are generalist foragers and are known to pollinate garden crops and garden plants. Like eggplant (Solanum melongena), tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), passion fruit (Passiflora edulis) and other species in that genus, cucurbits (Cucurbita spp.), cassias (Cassia spp.), Carolina jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens), cigar orchid (Cyrtopodium punctatum), bee balm (Monarda spp.), aromatic sumac (Rhus aromatica), and wild lupine (Lupinus perennis).

3. They are buzz pollinators - meaning they use vibrations, or sonication, to release pollen grains from the flower's anthers. To release pollen carpenter bees are able to grab onto the flower and move their flight muscles rapidly, causing the flower and anthers to vibrate, dislodging pollen. About 8% of the flowers of the world are primarily pollinated using buzz pollination. Wildflower gardeners~all Dodecatheon are buzz pollinated! Eggplants, potatoes, tomatoes, blueberries and cranberries are also buzz pollinated.

Camassia

4. They typically visit flowers that have large, open-faces with abundant nectar and pollen; bloom during the day; are pale or saturated in color; have a fresh odor; anthers specialized for pollen collection by bees; and corollas with strong walls.

5. They are nectar robbers and cheat the pollination process by breaking open the sides of flowers, like salvias and penstemons to get at the nectar! 

Bonus info. The menacing/dive bombing carpenter bee you encounter is only protecting a nest. It's a male drone and he's all buzz and no sting!


Happy Pollinator Week where ever you garden!xoxogail

PS In case you need a reminder! Please, never, ever, ever, ever, ever use pesticides in your garden. The pollinators will thank you by taking up residence and pollinating your fruits, vegetables and flowers!

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

The nectar robbers are at it again.

Carpenter bees are notorious nectar robbers. That big body makes it hard to fit into many flowers and they will drill or cut into the corolla of a plant to get at the nectar. It looks like the stinkers are getting nectar without a pollen transfer which messes with the mutualism that one expects with pollination.

Today, as I watched a beautiful carpenter bee work its way around the flowers of  Phlox 'Jeane', I wondered if the nectar of that flower could be depleted and what effect that might have on pollination and other visitors?

I wondered what affect this would have on pollination

So I did a little research.

It was always assumed that nectar robbers had a negative impact on the plants that they visited, but that is not necessarily true. The authors of a paper published in the Ecological Society of America Oct 2000 examined the last 50+ years of research on this subject and concluded that nectar robbing could have a beneficial or neutral effect. Here's what they said, "The effects of nectar robbers are complex and depend, in part, on the identity of the robber, the identity of the legitimate pollinator, how much nectar the robbers remove, and the variety of floral resources available in the environment." If you want to read more follow my highlighted link above.

Carpenter bee zeroing in on the nectar machine P paniculata 'Jeana'

I have no idea what effect nectar robbing will actually have on P paniculata 'Jeana'. She is after all a nectar machine! Last summer she was covered with Swallowtail butterflies, skippers, hummingbird moths and bees for almost 6 weeks.

I am hoping that a little nectar robbing now doesn't rob me of the pleasure of watching all her pollinator visitors the rest of this summer!

xoxogail

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

Pollinator Week: Xylocopa virginica

 Pollinator Week  has been proclaimed throughout the land! Here to help us celebrate is one of my favorite pollinators, the Eastern carpenter bee.

Five interesting facts about this gentle giant.

1. These big beautiful, noisy bees are excellent pollinators. In fact, they are being studied across the globe for pollinating green house crops like passionflower, blueberries, greenhouse tomatoes and greenhouse melons.


2. They are generalist foragers and are known to pollinate garden crops and garden plants. Like eggplant (Solanum melongena), tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), passion fruit (Passiflora edulis) and other species in that genus, cucurbits (Cucurbita spp.), cassias (Cassia spp.), Carolina jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens), cigar orchid (Cyrtopodium punctatum), bee balm (Monarda spp.), aromatic sumac (Rhus aromatica), and wild lupine (Lupinus perennis).

 

cheating pollination!

3. They are buzz pollinators - meaning they use vibrations, or sonication, to release pollen grains from the flower's anthers. To release pollen carpenter bees are able to grab onto the flower and move their flight muscles rapidly, causing the flower and anthers to vibrate, dislodging pollen. About 8% of the flowers of the world are primarily pollinated using buzz pollination. Wildflower gardeners~all Dodecatheon are buzz pollinated! Eggplants, potatoes, tomatoes, blueberries and cranberries are also buzz pollinated.

large open faced flowers rich in pollen and/or nectar are favorites

4. They typically visit flowers that have large, open-faces with abundant nectar and pollen; bloom during the day; are pale or saturated in color; have a fresh odor; anthers specialized for pollen collection by bees; and corollas with strong walls.

5. They are nectar robbers and cheat the pollination process by breaking open the sides of flowers, like salvias and penstemons to get at the nectar! 

Bonus info. The menacing/dive bombing carpenter bee you encounter is only protecting a nest. It's a male drone and he's all buzz and no sting!

There's probably no other bee that arouses irritation quite like this gentle giant. Just search "carpenter bee" and you will get hundreds of thousands of 'results' and almost all are about how to get rid of them.

They're very cool critters even if when they tunnel into your deck/front porch/garage and I love them even though they have tunneled into my front porch deck! They are now nesting in several large cedar stumps that I have placed around the yard....YIPPEE!

Happy Pollinator Week where ever you garden!xoxogail

PS In case you need a reminder! Please, never, ever, ever, ever, ever use pesticides in your garden. The pollinators will thank you by taking up residence and pollinating your fruits, vegetables and flowers!

 Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.