Bee turns over a sunflower seed at the bird feeder, 23 Feb 2024 (photo by Marianne Atkinson)
24 February 2024
Yesterday afternoon was warm and sunny at Marianne Atkinson’s house when she noticed bees at her bird feeder and sent me this message:
I am concerned about several honey bees. It is 48° and sunny on Feb. 23, 2024 at 3:15 P.M. The bees are crawling on the sunflower chips that are in this little window feeder and on my steps and platform feeder. The sunflower chips are dry. There is no water in them for the bees to drink or nectar.
Why are they doing this? Are they okay?
Bees at the bird feeder, 23 Feb 2024 (video by Marianne Atkinson)
Years ago I learned from beekeeper friends that early spring is a hungry time for honeybees. The warmth wakes them up in the hive, they go looking for food, but there are no flowers yet. Beekeepers provide extra food in the hive at this time of year but honeybees in the wild must go exploring.
Howard Russell at Michigan State University Extension provided this explanation:
Honey bees take advantage of any food source after a long, cold winter, including bird feeders. …
The bees collect the pollen-sized seed dust particles and yeast that are found in the cracked corn and other seeds we set out for our little feathered friends for which, I’m sure, the bees are extremely grateful. The bees will move on to their preferred food sources as spring flowers begin to appear.
This winter continues to fluctuate from cold (today) to warm (in the 60s Monday through Wednesday). Keep your feeders filled for birds … and hungry honeybees.
Plant pollination has been declining for many reasons including the absence of insects due to pesticides and habitat loss. Now a new reason has surfaced that has nothing to do with the number of flowers and bugs. Research has found that air pollution prevents nighttime pollination by turning off the scent of flowers.
The white-lined sphinx moth (Hyles lineata) is an important nighttime pollinator of purslane, primrose and rose. The research team led by J.K.Chan in eastern Washington, teased out the chemical emitted from pale evening primrose (Oenothera pallida) that attracts the hawkmoths.
The moths were particularly tuned to two different flavors of monoterpenes, a class of chemicals found in plant oils [that] evaporate quickly in the air. Moths, whose antennae are roughly as sensitive as a dog’s nose, can pick up the scent several kilometers away from a flower.
But there is an Achilles heel. When the researchers exposed the monoterpenes to NO3, it reacted with the oils, causing them to degrade by between 67% and 84%.
Air pollution doesn’t just change the scent of flowers. It erases the scent. The moths can’t find them.
Anthropocene Magazine continues, “While NO3 [a component of NOx] is less of a problem during the day because it breaks down in sunlight, it accumulates at night, when many pollinators, including the hawkmoths, are active.”
In southern Africa, caterpillars of the emperor moth Gonimbrasia belina (or Imbrasia belina) are commonly called mopane worms because they feast on the leaves of mopane trees (Colophospermum mopane). Their final instar is shown above, adult below.
Mopane worms are prized as human food. When they reach full size women and children avidly pick them from the mopane leaves, squish out their guts and take them home to boil and sun dry. When fully prepared the mopane worms look like this:
I had the opportunity to sample mopane worms at Dusty Road Township Experience, an award-winning restaurant in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe where we ate traditional food.
What did mopane worms taste like to my naive palate? Earthy. Crispy. Very earthy.
Perhaps the flavor was so earthy because I ate the head first. In Zimbabwe this makes no difference but in Botswana they take the heads off before they eat them because the heads change the taste. I wish I’d known so I could have tried it both ways.
Learn more about mopane worms and how to cook them in this video by Emmy @emmymade. She tastes them both ways and describes their flavor at 3.5 minutes into the video.
Each light is one of two ends of a fungal gnat larvae (Orfelia fultoni). This photo by Alan Cressler, embedded from Flickr, shows what the larva looks like during the day.
Orfelia fultoni, Anna Ruby Falls Recreation Area, Chattahoochee National Forest, White County, Georgia:
This is the only bioluminescent fungus gnat larvae in North America. Both whitish ends of the larvae emit a blue light used to lure prey. Although they may be common in proper habits, apparently there are very few places in the southeast where they form extensive colonies. One place is Dismal Canyon in Alabama where they are locally called “dismalites”. I was invited by my friends who work for the Chattahoochee National Forest to view and photograph the extensive colony at Anna Ruby Falls Recreation Area. Locally the event is called “fox fire” and there are scheduled night hikes to witness the amazing colony. Other than the guided night hikes, after hours entry into the area is prohibited.
Fungus gnat larvae live within a slime tube and develop a network of sticky filaments that capture prey that are attracted by the blue glow. The sticky filaments can be seen in the photos.
In the photographs above, the lights don’t look connected but you can see how they move in this video in New Zealand. The bluish glow worms in New Zealand are not the same species but they have a similar appearance and behavior.
Back in Georgia the foxfire glows mid-May through June when the gnat’s larval form is alive. Night hikes are offered during those months but pre-registration is required and the hikes fill up fast. Don’t wait until May 2024 to check this website for Foxfire Night Hikes at Anna Ruby Falls: https://gofindoutdoors.org/events/foxfire-night-hikes-coming-soon/
(Originals and credits of the slideshow photos can be seen by clicking on each photo)
Nowadays it’s rare to write anything by hand unless it’s the size of a Post-It note. When we really want to say something we use keyboards and touch screens to generate digital text read on screens or, less often, on paper. Our writing equipment becomes obsolete so rapidly that our computers and cellphones are replaced within a decade. (Who among us is still using the same cellphone since 2013? Do we even remember what model it was?)
So consider this: Humans used the same writing tool, the same indelible ink, from the 5th to the 19th century. When applied to parchment, it is readable 1,700 years later. The ink is easy to make by hand from natural ingredients and is still used in calligraphy today. To make iron gall ink, the process starts with a wasp and an oak.
Eventually we used paper instead of parchment, even for important documents, and iron gall ink fell out of favor because the acid in iron sulfate makes the paper disintegrate. To solve that problem we invented paper-friendly inks and then computers.
Medieval manuscript creation used natural products from animals, plants and minerals. See the process from parchment to ink to binding in this 6-minute video from the Getty Museum.
Pittsburgh’s spotted lanternfly plague (Lycorma delicatula) is mostly over after recent cold weather knocked out lots of adults. It’s not a bad year for brown marmorated stink bugs, so are the insect plagues over? Not quite. Yesterday I happened into a swarm of Asian ladybeetles.
Asian ladybeetles (Harmonia axyridis) were imported to the U.S. 35 years ago as predators for aphids, adelgids, psyllids and scales. They do a good job and they caused no trouble until they were able to overwinter starting in 1993.
It is not uncommon for tens of thousands of beetles to congregate in attics, ceilings and wall voids, and due to the warmth of the walls, will move around inside these voids and exit into the living areas of the home.
In addition to beetles biting (which they do), they exude a foul-smelling, yellow defensive chemical which will sometimes cause spotting on walls and other surfaces. Most people are only annoyed by the odor of these chemicals. However, some individuals have reported experiencing an allergic reaction to the defensive excretions.
Two bumblebees sleeping on goldenrod, Duck Hollow, 18 Sep 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
26 September 2023
Last week at Duck Hollow I found two bumblebees asleep on goldenrod. The temperature was a little chilly but the morning was bright and sunny. Were the bees waiting to warm up in the sun?
Bumblebee sleeping on goldenrod, 18 Sep 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Eight weeks ago I highlighted the reason why male bees sleep on flowers in July and August. Males don’t live in a hive so they sleep outdoors. They are solitary, searching for a mate, and nearing the end of their lives.
Female bumblebees return to the hive at night if they can. In the hot months of July and August females are indoors at night. However bad weather or chilly temperatures may force them to sleep outdoors until they warm up the next morning.
So I wondered are these sleeping bumblebees male or female? I can tell with a closer look at the bees.
Female bumblebees bring food to the hive so they have pollen sacks on their hind legs. If you see a full pollen sack on a bee’s hind leg you can be sure it’s female, as shown on the right in the photo below.
Male and female bumblebees (photo by Kate St. John)
A bee without pollen, like the one on the left, is either a female who delivered her pollen and has just come back for more, or it’s a male without a pollen sack.
I can see two obvious differences between male and female in these photos.
Male
Female
Hindlegs
Hairy
Smooth convex-shaped structure for holding pollen. (This one contains pollen!)
Large carpenter bee sips from a passionflower, Phipps, 20 Sep 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
23 September 2023
Last Wednesday I watched an enormous carpenter bee sipping from passionflowers at Phipps Conservatory’s outdoor garden.
The passionflower’s nectar treat is directly below its overhanging anthers and stigmas. On Wednesday the anthers were in position to touch the hairy spot on the bee’s back. The stigmas were too high to touch the bee.
The pollination parts of a passionflower. An anther touches a bee, 20 Sep 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Later, the anthers and stigmas will trade positions. The anthers will pull back. The stigmas that collect pollen for the ovary will touch the bee.
Sticky tape put on trees by an unknown Frick Park visitor, 19 Sept 2023 (photo by Michelle Kienholz)
20 September 2023
Six years ago, when spotted lanternflies (Lycorma delicatula) were a new plague in North America, no one knew if they would destroy Pennsylvania’s forests but scientists assumed the worst and warned accordingly. However, they also conducted long term studies of spotted lanternflies’ effect on Pennsylvania trees and agriculture. For PA trees there is happy news: Spotted lanternflies are not a danger to Pennsylvania forests. There’s no need to protect our trees from lanternflies because they are not hurting them.
Penn State subjected four species of trees to four years of spotted lanternfly super-infestation by surrounding the trees with mesh nets that kept hordes of lanternflies inside. Silver maple, weeping willow, and river birch were barely phased by the bugs and did quite well in the third year of the study. The bugs’ host plant, the invasive tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima), did not grow during the plague.
“If you have a vineyard and you have lanternflies on your grape vines, you should be very worried because they can kill grape vines,” Hoover said. “But if you’re a homeowner and you have large trees on your property and you have lanternflies on them, I don’t think you should worry about it.”
Yesterday an unknown visitor to Frick Park put sticky tape on some trees. Here’s what one section killed: 12 spotted lanternflies, 25+ pollinators (yellowjackets), 70 warbler-food insects (tiny flying insects). More beneficial insects died than lanternflies. Needless to say the tape has already been removed. (Click here to see how sticky tape kills birds!)
Sticky tape deaths in Frick Park, 19 Sep 2023 (photo by Michelle Kienholz)
Sticky tape is bad and pointless. If you put it up, remove it.
Sooty and white mold grow on honeydew deposited by spotted lanternflies feeding on Ailanthus, Schenley Park, 15 Sep 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
17 September 2023
The onslaught of invasive spotted lanternflies (Lycorma delicatula) continues in Pittsburgh until the first truly cold weather gives us a couple of frosts. This month the bugs are congregating on vertical objects, feeding on Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima), and laying eggs.
On Friday in Schenley Park the sun broke sideways through the trees to a large Ailanthus along the Lower Trail coated in lanternflies, sooty mold, and white mold (highlighted in yellow). The lanternflies were actively sucking on the tree’s sap.
White mold on Ailanthus beneath the spotted lanternfly feeding zone, Schenley Park, 15 Sep 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Sunlight illuminated small bugs flying horizontally near the tree and something falling that looked like rain.
Spotted lanternfly honeydew drops like rain, Schenley Park, 15 Sep 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Uh oh! That rain is watery spotted lanternfly poop called “honeydew.” The honeydew is sugary and the air actually smelled sweet.
So stand back when you see a tree coated in sooty mold and spotted lanternflies. You won’t want to get rained on.
