Month: April 2023

One of the joys of spring is observing the antics of insects and their relatives as they resume their activities outdoors. To celebrate this annual renaissance, the Department of Entomology hosts an award-winning Insect Petting Zoo as part of the Maryland Day Gala at the College Park Campus of the University of Maryland on Saturday, April 29, from 10 am to 3 pm. The Insect Petting Zoo is in the Plant Sciences Building on the ground floor directly across from the Regents Drive parking garage.

This year’s petting zoo will feature an incomparable ensemble of friendly, ferocious, and creepy crawly creatures. A visit to the petting zoo is sure to delight insect aficionados of all ages. This year’s extravaganza features bugs from around your home and around the world. Giant Lubber locusts straight from the Everglades of Florida will reveal their favorite delicacies and how they defend themselves from being eaten. Vietnamese and Australian walking sticks are true masters of disguise and giant Madagascar hissing cockroaches will blow your mind with their size and agility. Watch out for the Whip Scorpion that has a clever trick up its sleeve, or should we say its tail, to thwart attacks by enemies. If you are lucky, you might catch a glimpse of a Black widow spider with a bright red hourglass tattooed on her abdomen, a ferocious Green Tiger beetle hungry for fresh meat, or a Carpenter bee buzzing about its cage. The arts of trickery, mimicry, thanatosis, and other feats of deception and disguise will be revealed by Blue Death Feigning beetles, the European sowbug (roly poly),  Darkling beetles (armored stink beetle), and the remarkable, petite African ghost mantis.

Come to the Insect Petting Zoo at Maryland Day, Saturday April 29 at the University of Maryland, College Park. Travel around the world to meet rocking Vietnamese walking sticks and giant Australian walking sticks pretending to be dead leaves. Amazing Malaysian leaf insects will try to fool you and watch out for the whip scorpion and its smelly surprise. Hold a giant tarantula if you dare and look at, but don’t touch, the black widow spider. Meet the deadliest creature on our planet, blood-thirsty mosquitoes, and pet a friendly, furry Eastern tent caterpillar. Fast moving green tiger beetles will prowl their cage while blue death feigning beetles will be stuck in second gear. Learn why carpenter bees make holes in your deck and why iconic honey bees and their kin are imperiled in our rapidly changing world.

The Insect Zoo is not just a treat for the eyes. Children of all ages will have the chance to hold and touch (with parental permission of course) a multi-legged millipede from the desert or a hairy Eastern tent caterpillar from a cherry tree. The very brave may even have a chance to hold a giant tarantula. If touching isn’t your thing, then you can listen to the buzzing of a bee or the hissing of a cockroach from Madagascar. Meet face to face the number one killer of humans on the planet – dreaded bloodthirsty mosquitoes. Curious smells are on the menu as well. Learn what unwelcome house guest has the aroma of cilantro and discover an arachnid with the pungent odor of vinegar. If you are feeling social, investigate the wonders of perhaps our most important social insect, the honey bee. Stop by the invasive species corner and meet dastardly Emerald Ash Borers, the nefarious home invader Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, and the newcomer in our region, Spotted Lanternfly.

Children can collect insect stickers and the first 600 visitors may take home a Terrapin Lady Beetle to release in their garden to put a beat-down on insect pests lurking there. 

Don’t miss The Swamp – If you enjoy the life aquatic, be sure to stop by The Swamp across the hall and learn how dragonflies capture their prey and how diving beetles extract oxygen from water.

So, come one, come all to explore Maryland Day and the Insect Petting Zoo!

To learn more about Maryland Day and the location of the Insect Petting Zoo, please click on the following links:

Maryland Day:  https://marylandday.umd.edu/

Insect Petting Zoo and Discover a Swamp, 10am-3pm: https://marylandday.umd.edu/events?neighborhood=ag-day

Acknowledgements

Bug of the Week thanks Dr. Paula Shrewsbury for organizing the Insect Petting Zoo and Dr. Bill Lamp for organizing The Swamp at Maryland Day. Special thanks to Todd Waters and Chris Sargent for making our arthropods the happiest six and eight- legged creatures on the planet.

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About this time each spring, wooden structures in the DMV provide opportunity to witness an unparalleled display of aerial antics conducted by male carpenter bees. Frequently, humans who venture too near children’s wooden play sets, benches, railings, mailbox posts, decks, and houses with cedar siding are divebombed by territorial male carpenter bees that jealously guard key nesting sites for their mates. Carpenter bees resemble bumble bees in size and appearance, but notably have a glossy black abdomen rather than the hairy body sported by the bumble bee. Female carpenter bees build galleries in wood to serve as nurseries for their young. Male carpenter bees go to great lengths to convince potential mates of their worthiness by selecting and defending nesting sites. When other male carpenter bees approach defended territories, remarkable aerial battles ensue. Swooping, grappling, and biting often result in both combatants tumbling to earth before one withdraws from the fray. I watched one victorious male guard a nesting site and soon a lovely and somewhat coquettish lady carpenter bee arrived. She rested on the wooden bench guarded by her suitor, and a short but energetic romantic interlude ensued. As far as I could tell, the male flew off somewhere, perhaps for more battles or romantic conquests, but the female bee had different matters to attend.

After mating, the she bee begins the task of excavating a hole in the wooden structure to be used as a nursery for her brood. Her powerful mandibles create a slightly oval to almost perfectly round hole as she penetrates the wood to the depth of about a half inch. She then makes a right angle turn and continues tunneling parallel to the grain of the wood, excavating a series of brood-cells in a linear tunnel. In a piece of wood removed from one of the benches, I observed several tunnels more than a foot in length, some of which branched into secondary galleries. Each tunnel contained as many as thirteen individual brood-cells. To construct each tunnel represents more than a month’s worth of chewing and one has to admire the determination of these industrious gals in excavating a home for their young. After the chambers are built, they are meticulously cleaned and filled with bee bread, a nutritious mixture of pollen, nectar, and secretions from glands on the female’s body. Bee bread serves as the food for the young carpenter bees. Starting at the end farthest from the entrance, the female deposits an egg in each brood-cell. Each egg hatches into a legless larva that eats bee bread and develops during the course of spring and summer. In brood-cells furthest from the entrance, older larvae complete development first and after emerging from the pupa in late summer, these new adults push their way past brothers and sisters to escape the gallery and search for nectar and pollen. As summer wanes and autumn waxes, after foraging all day bees return to their galleries to spend the night. With the end of plants blossoming in the fall, carpenter bees return to their snug tunnels to chill out, protected from the ravages of winter.

Wooden structures like this play set bear telltale damage as woodpeckers search for carpenter bees inside the wood. Male carpenter bees zoom around nearby, sensing that nubile female bees will soon emerge from these galleries. They divebomb other competing males and nosy humans, aggressively defending their mating territory. When females emerge, they will quickly be mated by diligent guy bees patrolling nearby. Once inseminated, females build new galleries in wooden structures creating nesting sites for their young.

Watching humans duck and cover as male carpenters challenged intruders who dared to enter their territory is almost as entertaining as watching aerial battles among male bees. However, male carpenter bees lack stingers and are therefore unable to sting. Although the gals are equipped to sting, I have never been stung myself nor have I heard of anyone who was harmed by these fascinating creatures. Carpenter bees do cause some damage to wooden structures; however, these entertaining native insects provide important services in pollinating our trees, shrubs, and crops. At past events such as Maryland Day at the University of Maryland at College Park (to be held this year on April 29), over a thousand people visit our Insect Petting Zoo, and our resident carpenter bees received much interest and attention. Several children and a few courageous adults held the male bees and were fascinating by buzzing sounds and vibrations generated by flight muscles that power the wings. In discussing the antics and activities of carpenter bees, I was heartened to learn that most folks take a “live and let live” approach to dealing with the carpenters. As one lady put it, “This is their world too, you know.” I know, well said.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to John Davidson for sharing good carpenter bee stories with me. “Bionomics of large carpenter bees of the genus Xylocopa” by Gerling, Velthuis, and Hefetz” was used as a reference for this Bug of the Week.

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Last week we visited a feral colony of honey bees energetically engaged in their business of pollination in downtown Greenville, South Carolina. This week we jump some 500 miles north to the banks of the mighty Potomac River near Antietam National Battlefield. Along the alluvial banks of the river, galleries of ground nesting bees abound. And on an 80-degree day last week, fleets of busy pollinators darted among dandelions and hovered near patches of Dutchman’s breeches and Virginia bluebells. One particularly frenetic insect appeared to be some kind of furry bee with a wickedly long tongue that probed the depths of florets. Closer inspection revealed the fancy flier’s flight gear included one pair of wings not two, a sure sign that this was a fly and not a true bee. The close resemblance of these hairy flies to pollinators such as honey bees and bumble bees has earned them the name bee fly. Bee flies have a remarkably long mouthpart called a proboscis that is modified to reach deep into flowers to sip the carbohydrate rich nectar, which is an important source of energy for these hyperactive fliers. Although they do not deliberately collect pollen as a source of food for themselves or their young as do bees, their hairy coat traps pollen and provides convenient transport of pollen from one plant to another.

On a chilly spring morning a bee fly performs a pre-flight warm-up by rapidly fluttering its wings. Bee flies require huge amounts of carbohydrates, which they obtain from nectar, to power flight. Watch as the Greater Bee Fly, Bombylius major, gathers nectar from a dandelion with its ridiculously long proboscis. Busy mouthparts dance across the blossom. Bee fly cousins with tongues as long as their bodies provide similar pollination services to beautiful wildflowers in the Mojave Desert.

The fact that bee flies are common around flowers during this season of high bee activity is more than just a coincidence. Bee flies have a seamier side that often proves deadly for other species of insects. When solitary ground nesting bees such as halictids, colletids, and andrenids visit a flower and get a full load of nectar and pollen, they head back to their nest to provision it with food for their young. The wily and agile bee fly follows a bee back to its nest and deposits an egg in or near the burrow of the bee. After hatching, the fly larva enters the gallery of the bee. Some species of bee flies first consume provisions left behind by the solitary bee before turning their attention to the developing baby bees. They attach to the skin of the larval bee and suck its blood, which is the source of nutrients for the developing larva of the bee fly. A fascinating account by the great naturalist Jean-Henri Fabre (1823 – 1915) describes the attack of a bee fly larva in the genus Anthrax (described below as the worm and nursling) on a leafcutter bee larva in the genus Chalicodoma (called the nurse). “The worm is fixed by its sucker to any convenient part of the nurse, plump and fat as butter. It is ready to break off its kiss suddenly, should anything disquiet it, and to resume it as easily when tranquility is restored. No Lamb enjoys greater liberty with its mother’s teat. After three or four days of this contact of the nurse and nursling, the former, at first replete and endowed with the glossy skin that is a sign of health, begins to assume a withered aspect. Her sides fall in, her fresh color fades, her skin becomes covered with little folds and gives evidence of an appreciable shrinking in this breast which, instead of milk, yields fat and blood. A week is hardly past before the progress of the exhaustion becomes startlingly rapid. The nurse is flabby and wrinkled, as though borne down by her own weight, like a very slack object. If I move her from her place, she flops and sprawls like a half-filled water bottle over the new supporting plane. But the Anthrax’ kiss goes on emptying her: soon she is but a sort of shriveled lard bag, decreasing from hour to hour, from which the sucker draws a few last oily drains. At length, between the twelfth and the fifteenth day, all that remains of the larva of the mason bee is a white granule, hardly as large as a pin’s head.” Yikes!

Bee flies are a large diverse group known to attack and kill caterpillars, eggs of grasshoppers, and larvae of beetles, as well as baby bees. So, bees and other insects beware, bee flies are on the wing.

Acknowledgements

The Master Naturalist Program of the University of Maryland and eagle-eyed Dr. Shrewsbury provided the inspiration for this episode, a version of which was published pre-pandemic in 2018. The wonderful references “Insects: Their natural history and diversity” by Stephen Marshall, “The Life of the Fly” by J. Henri Fabre and the Maryland Biodiversity Project were used as references for this episode.

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To escape late winter doldrums, recent episodes of Bug of the Week visited Florida’s Everglades to meet creepy smiley face spiders and the largest grasshopper in the US. This week we make a stop in beautiful downtown Greenville, South Carolina, and the Swamp Rabbit Trail. After dining on fresh pastries and fueling up on strong java, it’s time to enjoy an increasingly rare occurrence, honey bees nesting in the cavity of a tree. As Winnie the Pooh knows, honey bees evolved to build hives in natural cavities like tree hollows rather than rectangular boxes built by humans. As a kid growing up in once rural Randolph, New Jersey, it was not unusual to know the location of a few honey bee trees in the forests. However, following the accidental introduction of parasitic Varroa mites into the US in the late 1980’s, both managed and feral honeybees have struggled for survival.

Enjoy one of Mother Nature’s most important pollinators busy at work along the Swamp Rabbit Trail in downtown Greenville, South Carolina. Honey bees made a traditional home in the hollow of an ancient Osage orange tree. Watch as workers return to the hive, leg baskets overflowing with bright yellow pollen, while outbound workers quickly depart to gather new loads of pollen and nectar for their nestmates. Nearby a fragrant white hyacinth seems just the right place to load up on supplies. No humans or honey bees were disturbed or harmed in the making of this video.

Back in 2015, Bug of the Week reviewed several challenges facing our imperiled honey bees. The appearance of a deadly phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, grabbed national attention in 2006 when many commercial beekeepers reported unusually large losses of honeybee colonies in several locations in the United States. When CCD strikes a hive, worker bees simply disappear leaving behind the queen, a few young attendant workers, and cells full of pollen and brood. One of the defining characteristics of CCD is the absence of dead bees in the colony. Without a full contingent of hardy workers, the queen and brood are doomed and the colony collapses. Soon after CCD was discovered, national surveys of beekeepers were conducted to determine the magnitude of the problem. Between September 2006 and March 2007, beekeepers lost approximately 32% of their hives. During a similar period in 2007 and 2008, beekeepers in general lost about 36% of their colonies. One important trend in the colony loss phenomenon has been a reduction in losses attributed to CCD. But hives continue to falter and fail.

What are some of the factors connected with the demise of honey bee colonies in the US? The causes of CCD and hive loss are not fully understood, but researchers have made great progress identifying some of the culprits in this mystery. A recent article by researcher Selina Buckner and colleagues identified a multitude of factors harmful to the health and vitality of honey bee colonies. Factors include those connected to living organisms (biotic factors) and those associated with the non-living environment (abiotic factors). Premier among the biotic factors are invasive parasitic mites and viruses they carry, unhealthy queen honey bees, and variable, scarce, and sometimes unreliable sources of nectar and pollen for bees. On the abiotic side, extreme weather events threaten honey bees and plants on which they depend. Human-made environmental inputs of fungicides and insecticides conspire with these other forces to extinguish hives of honey bees. In a recent summary of surveys connected to honey bee colony loss, scientists discovered that small scale, backyard beekeepers experienced higher rates of winter colony loss, which ranged from 36% to 51% in winters between 2017 and 2020, compared to commercial beekeepers where winter losses ranged from ~ 26% to ~ 32% during the same time frame. By contrast, summer colony losses were generally higher for commercial beekeepers, ranging from ~21% to ~ 28% compared to backyard beekeepers where losses ranged from ~15% to ~22% over three growing seasons. In addition to differences in the size and mode of operation, backyard vs commercial, shifting regional and seasonal patterns of colony loss provide a complex tableau where mites and their associated viruses, queen issues, starvation, and pesticides, along with several other factors, imperil these iconic pollinators here in the US. But circling back to Greenville, SC, where this tale began, what a treasure to behold an Osage orange tree full of busy honey bees along an urban park trail where curious passersby can enjoy one of Mother Nature’s most iconic pollinators at work.

Acknowledgements      

Bug of the Week thanks Nathalie Steinhauer and the Bee Informed Partnership for providing information used in this episode. The amazing article “A national survey of managed honey bee colony losses in the USA” by Selina Bruckner, Mikayla Wilson, Dan Aurell, Karen Rennich, Dennis, vanEngelsdorp, Nathalie Steinhauer and Geoffrey R. Williams was used as a resource for this article. Special thanks to Dr. Paula Shrewsbury for images and discovering the bee tree that inspired this episode.

To learn a ton about honey bees, their successes and travails, visit the Bee Informed website on a regular basis: http://beeinformed.org/

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