I took a walk along the creek behind our house today, and on my way home, I stopped to look at an overgrown cactus with beautiful, magenta flowers. Always hoping to spot one of my bees having a good meal, I was drawn to the plant and soon noticed several frantic bees zipping around. On closer inspection, I noticed that the bees, although a similar overall size to honeybees, had a slightly flat abdomen, with pronounced white and brown stripes. And boy were they good pollinators! I watched a bee nuzzle its way into the flower's plentiful stamens and quickly pass pollen from its front legs to the huge pollen loads on its back legs. Before I knew it, the bee was onto the next flower. There was another, smaller bee on the scene, but for the most part the larger bees dominated, and I started to wonder if it was a plant-specific bee. I couldn't find it's exact match online, but I was satisfied to know that 'cactus bees' or Diadasia (http://www.greatsunflower.org/diadasia) do exist; they are solitary bees that live in the ground and eat the pollen and nectar of cacti. Who knew? When I went back to take the pictures below, I noticed one particularly fuzzy little bee go into a flower and stay there. I confess that I bugged her a little--I wanted to know what she was up to--and I was rewarded with a very sweet picture of her peeking out. I can't help wandering what she was up to. Just taking a rest? Would she sleep there through the night? Very mysterious.
During my search to identify the cactus bee, I ran across a fantastic story about a UK grocery chain's PR campaign, which involves hanging bee hotels across England. Here's the story: http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/1803494/sainsburys-doors-bee-hotels
Our bees are doing great. We combined a couple of hives because they went queenless post-swarm. They are monster hives now, and we are hoping to get a honey harvest this year...finally!
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