By Julie McConnell, UF/IFAS Extension Bay County
May 20th was World Bee Day celebrating the roles of bees and other pollinators internationally. European honey bees always seem to be in the spotlight, but did you know there are over 300 bee species found in Florida? There is a great variety of size, shape, color, and behavior among these insects, and most are fantastic pollinators of fruits, nuts, vegetables, and wildflowers but are often overlooked.
Native Florida bees are broken down into nine broad categories; sweat bees, leafcutter bees, mason bees, bumble bees, carpenter bees, long-horned bees, mining bees, plasterer bees, and cuckoo bees. I certainly cannot cover all of them in this article but would like to introduce you to a couple and hopefully pique your interest beyond the famous honey bee!
Mining bees make their nests in the ground which are many times mistaken for burrows of pest species. This solitary yet gregarious bee will build a tunnel in bare ground to create a nest. The tunnel is lined with an excretion from the female which makes it waterproof. She collects pollen and nectar which is deposited in the chamber to sustain the larva that will hatch from the single egg laid inside. The larva will go through four instars before entering a prepupa then pupal stage before emerging as an adult the following spring nine months later. There is no social structure with communal brood rearing in this solitary bee life cycle, however, it is common to find nesting sites from multiple females grouped together which is why they are described as gregarious. Miner bees are generalist flower visitors which provides pollination services for many plants including milkweed, persimmon, blackberry, rose, tomatoes, and clover to name a few.
Another interesting type of solitary bee is the leaf cutting bee. As the name implies, theses bees cut out pieces of leaves from plants that are used to create nests. The leaf is rolled up like a cigar and used to line cavities the bee finds and uses to house her young. Examples of cavities used by leaf cutter bees are holes in rotting wood, hollow plant stems, man-made nesting sites, or holes previously used by other insects. The female creates multiple chambers or cells in a nest, but each one holds only one egg. She provisions each cell with a loaf of pollen and nectar for the larva. Leaf cutter bees emerge in the spring after overwintering as a young adult bee. There are over 25 species of leaf cutter bees in Florida that pollinate many crops including wildflowers, fruits, vegetables, and alfalfa.
To see more photos like these from UF, and learn about more Florida bees please visit Bees of Florida https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/IN/IN128500.pdf and UF/IFAS Featured Creatures http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures.
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