Monday, July 15, 2013

garden pollinators

While I'm weeding in my garden these days the sound of little wings is so loud! (That and the sound of my sweat dripping in this heat wave...)
pollinator 043 pollinator 077 pollinator 071
I have heard there are thousands of native bees and other pollinators in New England. I bet many are tiny. As I look around for pollinators to photograph, I see many are really small. I notice bees, wasps, flies and butterflies. I know the flies have big eyes, and bees have smaller eyes, and wasps have waists (in general - except for the exceptions).
pollinator 065 pollinator 039 pollinator 038 pollinator 031 Sometimes its hard to get a photo of just one pollinator! pollinator 037 pollinator 027 pollinator 024 pollinator 020 pollinator 012 pollinator 005 pollinator 001 Most of my pollinator photos ended up being on the little yellow dill flowers. I've read that these are great to have in the garden as they attract beneficial insects. I let the dill come up where it self seeds from the previous year - all over the garden. Some pollinators were also on borage, echinacia, daisies and Johnny-jump-ups. If you want a plant that attracts pollinators, walk through a local nursery and select the plant with the most bees on it! pollinator 082 I need to ask our local bee keepers about their honey bees this year. We have four set of boxes near our community gardens where I took these photos. In previous years, it seems I have seen more honey bees in my garden. On the day I took these pictures, I only saw one honey bee (though a really nice one who got the number one photo spot!) among at least ten or twenty other types of bees.

8 comments:

Lara said...

Got to love those pollinators-wonderful pictures!

Anonymous said...

What a great variety of pollinators, especially in the dill! I'm not an expert, but I think I recognize several of them. My guesses:
Honeybee,
Wasp, possibly a Great Black Wasp
Syrphid fly, possibly Toxomerus
Bumblebee
Wasp, possibly a Bee Wolf
Syrphid fly, possibly Eristalis
Fly
Bumblebee and two smaller bees, possibly Agapostemon
Syrphid fly,
Fly
Fly
Syrphid fly, possibly Sphaerophoria
Bee, possibly a Miner Bee
Butterfly or Skipper
Fly

If you do want to consult the experts, I highly reccommend Bugguide.net.

kathy said...

Yes, I love Bugguide and have submitted photos in the past.

Tina said...

Kathy, these are GREAT pictures! I've tried to take pictures of our bees and beneficial wasps before, and found it very hard to get them into focus. You must either have a very good camera or be very good at photography or both. :)
Really enjoyed these, thanks for posting.

Mike the Gardener said...

Wow! I am very impressed with these photos of so mnay pollinators ... they are gorgeous

Native Grasses said...

That's what makes the flower world turn. Pollinators. How informative as well. We have a variety of native grasses. I wonder how they reproduce? Just a thought.
http://www.onlineplantnursery.com/native-grasses/

garden plants nursery said...

That's odd they had rather have these than those nectar filled favorites like hummingbird vines and coneflowers.

Cassidy said...

I love to watch birds and bees get nectar from those little delicate flower blooms. I have a wild lettuce plant and hummingbirds flock to that plant. Also we have a creek down by our house and they fight constantly trying to get that nectar.