A Few Autumn Pollinators

Posted on October 15, 2024 by Tina

While it still feels like summer (101F on Sunday!), autumn is here. The garden is lush with blooms, marking the second spring that Central Texas enjoys, the welcome blooming bonanza which is the payoff for our long, hot summers. It’s also very dry here; there’s been little rain since sometime in July. I don’t water the garden all that often, but I’m doing so this week.

The pollinators don’t mind either the heat or the drought as long as pollen and nectar are in good supply. I’m witnessing a huge variety of pollinators, all zipping (some crawling!) from bloom to bloom, filling the garden air with whiffs of wings and buzzes galore.

Plenty of American Bumblebees are gathering up pollen for overwintering nests. This one works the rich blue flowers of Henry Duelberg Sage, Salvia farinacea, ‘Henry Duelberg’.

Take a look at her pollen pantaloons! (Correctly known as corbiculae.)

The big showy butterflies are also active. This Giant Swallowtail, Papilio cresphontes nectars on luscious flowers of a Mexican Orchid tree, Bauhinia mexicana, the expansive, graceful wings carrying the insect from flower to flower.

Clusters of diminutive white blooms on Evergreen Sumac, Rhus virens, hosts scads of beetles, native bees, skippers, bigger butterflies, and honeybees.

This sumac is now two years old, just over 5 feet tall, and producing its first set of blooms. I’m loving it, as are the pollinators.

I’m not absolutely sure what this handsome critter is, but my best guess is that it’s a Blue-winged Wasp, Scolia dubia. Autumn flowering Frostweed, Verbesina virginica, lures the most interesting and varied pollinators; everyone seems to love these snowy blooms. Many of the pollinators who make their pilgrimage to frostweed in fall are nowhere in the garden at other times of the year. There’s always something that I’ve never seen before.

It’s nice when pollinators share mealtime!

Few Monarch butterflies have come through my garden as they make their way to Mexico and those that have visited were unwilling to participate in photo sessions, wings swooshing away from me in annoyance. Their cousins, Queen butterflies, Danaus gilippus, are common and active and don’t mind a photo–as long as their sipping of the sweet stuff isn’t interrupted. This two-fer spent time on the Plateau goldeneye, Viguiera dentata.

Texas Craglily, Echeandia texensis, attracts bees to its yellow-orange lilies. In particular, bumblebees excel at the hanging-upside-down trick.

Honeybees also grab onto the the stamens of craglilies for their share of pollen and nectar.

Cheerful pink Rock Rose, *Pavonia lasiopetala*, bobs in the background.

A significant cool front is headed our way, tomorrow and the rest of the week thankfully cooler. No rain is in the foreseeable future. I’m glad my garden is drought-tolerant, packed with native and well-adapted plants, and I’m pleased that it is a respite for wildlife. All wildlife–pollinators included–and this gardener, appreciate the bounty and beauty that these plants offer, especially in stressful times.

Absconded!

Posted on October 6, 2024 by Tina

In early June, at the first hive check of the month (we check our hives every 2-2.5 weeks from late February through October), we realized that there was no activity around our hive, Woody. No bees were flying in, no bees were flying out. The hives sit at the back of the garden and I don’t garden-putter much in that area, so day-to-day, I don’t pay close attention to the honeybee goings-on.

When we opened up the hive, it was empty of life. The comb was beautiful and intact and the bees had eaten all the honey in the the 30 frames, there wasn’t a drop left! Woody’s bees had absconded, meaning that the hive performed a total swarm: the queen and all the workers left, permanently, and for unknown reasons. Honeybees will abandon their hive if the resources are scare (not in this case), or if there is prolonged, rainy weather (didn’t happen), or for other, only-for-honeybees-to-understand, reasons. Bingo! We believe the hive absconded just a few days before the planned the hive check and during the previous hive check, Woody was a healthy, active hive.

The one issue that could have have caused Woody to search for and move to different real estate is that the stronger hive, Bo-Peep, might have been robbing Woody of its honey, and perhaps Woody’s ladies had enough of that nonsense. Realistically? We’ll never know why the bees left. Absconding happens, not often, but it’s a natural process, akin to honeybee swarming, though with different causes and goals. Woody’s absconding is our first experience with this particular honeybee happening.

We dismantled the hive, laid the parts–boxes and frames–in the garden, preparing to freeze the frames to kill any wax moths or other invasive insects and their eggs. We’ll wash the hive boxes with a bleach/water mixture to kill eggs snuggled in cracks and crevices.

I should add that we don’t think the bees absconded because of wax moth eggs or larvae that were in the hive. Every hive in Texas has wax moth eggs and at least, early stage larvae. Wax moth larvae are truly nasty critters, but a healthy hive will keep the hive free of an infestation. Bees are tidy gals! Weak hives are vulnerable, and empty wax frames just sitting around are an invitation for moths to lay eggs so that the gross caterpillars eat their way through the wax.

Even in the few days that the bees weren’t in the hive, wax moth larvae had hatched and commenced with their wax destruction. The larvae eat the wax, leaving frass and webbing as they move through the comb. A serious infestation will destroy a hive in a matter of days. We lost a hive to wax moth several years ago and it was horrific. It was one of the foulest, most disgusting clean-up chores I’ve ever been forced to engage in.

If you look carefully at the comb cells, you can see some of the small, newly hatched larvae.

The larvae grow to about 1 inch long and are quite plump before they’re ready to pupate and morph to their adult selves. Freezing the frames for 3 days is the best insurance for killing any eggs or larvae. Each time we take honey frames for extraction, we pop the frames into our freezer for the allotted 3 days; afterwards, we store the frames in plastic bins. We extract as soon as we have time (it’s a process), because no matter how tight the lids are, if we don’t extract within a month or so, wax moth larvae somehow appear, even when we’ve taken correct precautions.

Bo-Peep is now our only hive.

Bo is a prolific honey producer. This season, we’ve already extracted over 6 gallons of honey from her and we have 5 more frames ready to process. I’m hoping that at the next hive check, we won’t need to take honey to free up space in the hive, but we’re going to make sure we have a few frames ready for replacement–just in case! We want to leave plenty of honey for winter, but also to allow for space in the frames so that these busy bees will continue to do what they do–pollinate, slurp nectar, and make honey–in the cooler season ahead. Bees are honey hoarders and they force us to be honey hoarders!

They just can’t help themselves…

Dashing

Posted on September 28, 2024 by Tina

This beautiful Blue Dasher, Pachydiplax longipennis, danced and pranced with a partner over the pond, alighting and resting on a sun-crisp tip of a Pickerel Rush leaf. I’m not sure whether the partner was a potential mate or a rival in territory, but it also sported a rich blue/green exoskeleton, though didn’t perch where I might easily observe its beauty.

Wings sparkle in the early autumn sun, head swivels in response to large eyes watching for prey of small flying insects. These dragonflies (in the skimmer family) are not pollinators, but skilled predators in the garden, eating a large variety of insects, including mosquitoes and various flies.

Later in the afternoon, in different light, the skimmer was still around. Its azure and jade buddy was missing; perhaps it had moved on to another watering hole.