Insects I - Bees, Wasps, Sawflies and Ants
Hymenoptera This honeybee is drinking nectar from White Clover flowers in my yard. Note the pollen basket on her hind leg. Bees have a honey stomach which they fill with nectar then return to the hive. It would take 1500 trips to fill a teaspoon with nectar. The nectar is put into the honeycombs. When about half of the water has evaporated, the nectar becomes honey. Notice how the individual clover flowers change color and position when they have been pollinated. Bees collect pollen on the pollen baskets on their hind legs to take back to the hive. The pollen is mixed with honey (called "bee bread") and eaten by the larvae and bees. Have you ever noticed little yellow splotches on your car? That is "bee pee"! :) Bees are in the order Hymenoptera, along with ants, sawflies, hornets, yellowjackets and wasps.
My parents' Jack Russell Terrier, Buttons, was favoring his right front leg one day when we were visiting them in Florida, upon closer inspection I noticed this large stinger and venom sac that was lodged in his leg. That poor little dog has had a lot of problems recently with the neighborhood critters; he's been bitten twice by Pygmy rattlesnakes in their yard and now stung by a very large wasp!
Anyone living in the south needs to learn what these nests look like! Fire ants build large underground colonies that can often be detected by a large mound of sand or soil above the nest. Beware, any slight disturbance will provoke these ants into quickly attacking.
I was fascinated to watch this tiny black Ant grasp this fly with her mandibles and carry it over leaves and grass during a morning walk. When we go visit my parents in the Panhandle of Florida, Kenny and I enjoy walking in their neighborhood to start the day off each morning. We don't seem to get much exercise though, I get too distracted by all the nature. :) Maybe I shouldn't take my camera.... no way!
When we turned over a board in the field at science camp we saw these black ants scurrying to protect the small white larvae and pupae in their nest. I told the students to put the board back just like they found it so they could "put the roof back" on the ants' home. I suspect the large larvae and pupae may be a different species of ant, they are much larger than the black adults caring for them. There are some species of "parasitic" ants that lay their eggs in another type of ants' nest. The invaded ants will care for the larvae and pupae as though they were of their own kind. The following photo shows the drastic size difference of the ants and the pupa. However, if you look closely in this photo you'll see a few smaller pupae which are probably the same type as the black adults.
Note the pollen basket on the hind leg and the pollen grains on her thorax. This photo was taken in mid-February. Honeybees can become active in winter if the temperature rises above 60 degrees F. Unfortunately, we have had way too many 60 degree days in the winter of 2007 - 2008!
I photographed this Wood-boring Bee chewing a hole in our mailbox post. There were 3 or 4 of them flying around checking for their nest holes. It is not hard to see how these bees can chew a nest tunnel into wood when you look at those large mandibles (mouthparts). These are solitary bees, so they are not as likely to sting while protecting their nests. This type of bee is different than the Carpenter Bee, which looks like a Bumblebee.
Here's another photo of an Ant carrying a large load. The roach she is dragging along is much larger than she is! She was fast too, I had a hard time focusing on her.
. The air flows through the spiracles and into tiny, branching trachaea that go all over the insect's body. Insects are classified by orders which reflect the type of wings a particular group has.
This Ant was one of many that I saw removing sand grains from their underground nest.
spp. June 2008 These poor adult ants are struggling to move a pupa that is considerably larger than themselves. They are moving a future "reproductive" ant (either a queen or drone) that will help start a new colony. They are called "acrobat" ants because they often raise their heart-shaped abdomen when disturbed. If these ants had not been so busy trying to move the pupa, they probably would have had their abdomens raised! If you look VERY closely, you may be able to see the tiny stinger of the ant on the right. I had to be careful not to get stung as I moved in close with my macro lens to get this photo!
This Bee stinger display is located at the nature center at Bays Mountain Park in Kingsport, TN. It is a great way to show the difference in the barbed stingers of honeybees and the smooth stingers of all other bees, wasps and ants. A worker honeybee's stinger is pulled out when she stings and the venom sack continues to pump. It is important to get the stinger out quickly to keep from being invenomated too much. Do not grab and squeeze the stinger, it must be scraped out by a fingernail, knife blade, or even a credit card. The bee dies after losing her stinger. Female worker bees live for 4 weeks, the final week they are in the field gathering nectar and pollen. They are the most commonly seen honeybees. Male bees have one purpose in life (mating), when that purpose has been accomplished, they die (like the workers, the males also lose a body part! I won't go into too much detail, this is a family-friendly site!). ;)
Ants swarm on Peony flower buds to eat the sticky sap on the sepals.
spp. June 2009 These poor adult ants are struggling to move a pupa that is considerably larger than themselves. They are moving a future "reproductive" ant (either a queen or drone) that will help start a new colony. Note the large larva in the top of the photo. They are called "acrobat" ants because they often raise their heart-shaped abdomen when disturbed. If these ants had not been so busy trying to move the pupa, they probably would have had their abdomens raised!
This photo of an earwig's head shows the segmented antennae and the compound eyes. I took this at 30 times magnification with my new digital stereomicroscope.
When we turned over a board in the field at science camp we saw these black ants scurrying to protect the small white pupae in their nest. I told the students to put the board back just like they found it so they could "put the roof back" on the ants' home.
I was very surprised to see 2 Ants (only one is visible) struggling up a tree dragging this sowbug over the bark! Insects never cease to amaze me!
Honeybee with Milkweed pollinia
It took nearly 50 shots to finally get this picture! I had to handhold the camera because the bee was moving too fast to use a tripod. She was having a very difficult time walking on the milkweed flowers because of all the pollinia that had attached to her feet! Milkweed flowers have highly specialized pollen-bearing structures that must be picked up by a bee or beetle, then correctly inserted into another flower on a nearby plant. Maybe she will succeed in pollinating some flowers so there will be some seedpods this fall! :)
This fuzzy bumblebee is drinking nectar from the flowers of the Butterfly weed, a type of Milkweed. Milkweeds have a special way of being pollinated. The pollenia are shaped like an upside down V, the bee's legs may pick up the pollenia as she visits the flowers, if she successfully inserts them into another flower, pollination will occur.
This was not something I was happy to see at the 2008 Science Camp during our Habitat Hunters class! Fire Ants made an appearance in Oak Ridge a couple of years ago and they are making themselves right at home! I stuck a piece of grass into the nest to show the students what would happen if they stepped on one. Check out the choppers on this little gal! If fire ants attack a blade of grass with this much fury, just imagine what these little gals would do to your ankle! The ant on the right is both stinging and biting the grass. It is important to learn what fire ant nests look like and avoid stepping in them.
Ants are incredibly strong for their size! It is interesting to watch them move small stones and pieces of soil from the tunnels of their underground nests. Ants are in the order Hymenoptera, meaning "membrane-winged", and are related to bees and wasps. Like their relatives, the females are the workers and they can sting. The queen in the colony is the only reproductive member, she lays all the eggs, her daughters do all the work. The males, called drones, have one purpose in life (one can guess what that is!), once that "job" has been fulfilled, he dies. Sorry guys!
These large black Ants are moving a pupa. It is so interesting to watch ants move an object that is as large as themselves!
