Category Archives: Food

Welcoming native bees

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I gave a Zoom lecture last night on why people should care about native bees, and promised the audience (friends of Belmont Hills Library, in Bala Cynwyd, PA) that I’d share some links, photographs, and answers to some of the questions at the end. If you have any lingering questions or thoughts, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Good luck attracting bees, and thanks again for the invitation.

My blog posts I referenced

Links of interest

Articles

Bee books

Answers to questions

  • Good native ground cover to replace English ivy? A: golden groundsel (Packera aurea).
  • Honey from any native bees? A: yes, from stingless bees. I have a few photographs from Costa Rica and Mexico. It’s more liquidy than European honey bee honey.
  • Are yellow jackets wasps or bees? A: wasps
  • How deep do ground-nesting bees dig? A: I looked up the record and in some species the tunnels can extend down 10 feet or more. But 12 to 18″ is more typical.
  • Do figs actually eat wasps? A: Figs in the wild are pollinated by wasps, but as I mentioned, the varieties we grow in the United States don’t require pollination, so the crunch is not due to wasps within. Fig and biology fans should read Gods, Wasps, and Stranglers: the Secret History and Redemptive Future of Fig Trees.
  • Is it worth keeping hostas in pots for leafcutter bees A: It is never worth keeping hostas alive for any reason. But leafcutter bees will use them, I’ve read.

Photographs I showed or meant to show

For more photographs of bees (and wasps), my full collection is on SmugMug.

  • Apis meliffera
  • Apis mellifera
  • Apis mellifera
  • Augochlora pura
  • Augochlora pura
  • Augochlora pura
  • Bombus griseocollis
  • Bombus impatiens
  • Bombus mixtus
  • Chelostoma philadelphi.
  • Colletes inaequalis
  • Colletes thoracicus
  • Eumenes fraternus
  • Halictus ligatus
  • Lasioglossum
  • Dialictus
  • Litomegachile
  • Megachile mendica
  • Megachilini
  • Melissodes bimaculatus
  • Melissodes
  • Melissodes
  • Megachile sculpturalis
  • Megachile sculpturalis
  • Osmia taurus
  • Osmia taurus
  • Xylocopa virginica
  • Tricrania sanguinipennis
  • Triepeolus
  • Chelostoma philadelphi

#BeeBest

Distinguishing tobacco and tomato hornworm caterpillars

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Tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta) caterpillars have stripes (seven of them), so remember that by thinking of Lucky Strikes cigarettes (seven is a lucky number; stripes sort of rhymes with strikes). Plus the horn on a tobacco hornworm is usually red or red-tipped, like a cigarette. Tobacco hornworms also have black shadows on their stripes, and and tobacco gives you dark teeth and lungs.

Tomato hornworms (Manduca quinquemaculata) have eight chevrons (Vs), which you can remember by thinking of V8 juice, which is primarily tomato juice.

Here’s a graphic that summarizes the above:

Photographs of tobacco and tomato hornworm caterpillars

Here’s a larger photograph of a tobacco hornworm (7 stripes, red-tipped horn) covered with Cotesia congregata pupae.

Manduca sexta