Finding Answers

In my first past here I was looking at an Andrena aggregation out on top of the grass waiting for the sun to come out from behind the clouds and warm their flight muscles enough to fly and have their breeding swarm. It really perplexed me at the time.

I went back to the aggregation as the Daisies were just starting to open. Every open flower had a crab spider and I wondered if they were getting a push towards a grass preference. But that really only lasted a few days and then enough daisies were open to resolve the threat.

Now it is a jungle out there. The bees have to climb in and climb out. The bees also seem to like landing to check out the nest, flying off and looking some more and then landing again before going down the hole. You can see that in both of these videos the first is down at the site photographed in the associated observation.

https://youtu.be/_pi5WB1n-aw

This 2nd clip is in the 2nd aggregation I found but the same behavior is there. It is also my poster child for the pollen load can change the appearance of a bee. The 2nd associated observation shows abdominal stripes recolored by pollen. This bee has a black abdomen with black hairs. the yellowish color is pollen.

https://youtu.be/D7Wqch90-xg

Posted on June 11, 2022 12:11 AM by little_mousie