Скачать или смотреть Rose-mallow Bee along path to Fleetwood Pond

If you’ve walked on the Dike Trail or the path leading to Fleetwood Pond, you might have notices busy bees going in and out of holes in the ground. These bees are the Rose-mallow Bee (Ptilothrix bombiformis). Some bees are considered specialist bees and are picky eaters, typically collecting pollen from a single host genus or several related genera. The Rose-mallow Bee is a Hibiscus specialist. It nests in hard-packed roadways and levees in close proximity to water sources. Females can “walk” on water! They alight on the water’s surface to collect water to moisten the hard-packed soil while excavating burrows. The entrance to the nest is surrounded by a turret, which looks like a mud chimney. Females construct and provision several nests during one season. Nests are vertical and usually one or two-celled and each cell contain an egg and a pollen provision. The female lays her egg on the pollen provision and the larvae eats its way around the pollen mass as it grows and develops. Mating behavior involves male bees resting in Hibiscus flowers, waiting for foraging females, and males will fly from blossom to blossom in search of a female. Males will chase-away or fight with other males that try to land on their flower. These bees DO NOT sting! Source: https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pol...
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