Comments on: Sandpaper Plant Summary – Bees and Weevils

By: mary

mary — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 23:55:52 +0000

Thanks for checking in, Stasia. It’s really eye-opening to watch all this happening.

Mary

By: Stasia

Stasia — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 22:44:28 +0000

Fascinating stuff! Thanks for sharing it, Mary.

By: mary

mary — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 17:39:02 +0000

Bees on the maples. Ah, and are the bees busy elsewhere as well? On the second day of the Davilla bloom, a nearby Eugenia plant was blooming as well and I thought for awhile the Eugenia would steal away all the bees from the Davilla. But no, there seemed to be enough bees to go around. Oh - and are you watching the bees on your maples? I'd recommend the experience.

By: Beau

Beau — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 12:33:23 +0000

Fascinating plant and description- must be interesting to watch. Our bees are on the maples now…

By: mary

mary — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:36:07 +0000

Ian, Thanks for the good questions. Right now I don't know what the insect species are, but I hope to get an ID on them before the month is out. I've got it in my head that the weevils are not pollinating at all, but rather are eating the pollen. I could be completely wrong about that, though. One correspondent has seen the stingless bee, Trigona corvina, swarming on Davilla, and so it's possible that honey bees are at minimum competing with the Trigona and possibly displacing them. I will post a follow-up when I have some answers. And, yes, it is fun. Mary

By: Ian

Ian — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:24:51 +0000

Wow – really cool. I missed the first post on this. Awfully cool.

So here’s another question – were there any native bees, or was it just the honeybees and the hoverfly? And if there aren’t native bees, is it because they have been displaced by the honeybees? Or are the weevils the “proper” pollinators, and the honeybees are just exploiting the window early in the morning before the weevils get going?

Fun stuff.