Bee Watching in Your Own Backyard

The term urban wildlife probably conjures images of squirrels, raccoons, birds, and bunnies—right? But there's a whole diverse world of tiny critters that call our backyards home that I find quite fascinating to watch, especially when I can get up close and really observe their behaviors. Sometimes, I feel like I get a sense of what I rather unscientifcally call their “personalities.”

A bumblebee coming in for a landing on a Henry Hudson rose blossom.

What I mean is, bumblebees (Bombus genus) are galoots of the insect world. They really do bumble about as they forage the flowers in our yard—especially the Henry Hudson roses, which form a rather large bush next to the patio and seem to be a favorite of many kinds of bees. The bumblers will sometimes knock smaller bees out of the way momentarily, all elbows on the table, then move on to the next flower.

I have watched this: A tiny bee is quietly collecting pollen when along comes a bumblebee, more than twice its size, and bumps into the little guy, who moves aside and appears to be clinging to the edge of a flower petal, hanging on until the bumblebee moves on, then resumes its place at the center of the flower.

A green sweat bee gives wide berth to a bumblebee.

I admit I am easily amused, but it's like watching a slapstick show in miniature. Nobody gets hurt, and both bees appear to get what they need in the end.

Bumblebees aren't the only galoots among bees, though. A variety of wild bees are similarly haphazard in the way they go about gathering pollen and nectar, in contrast with honeybees, which tend to have more disciplined work habits.

The tiny bee here is keeping an even greater distance from the bumblebee.

What's really interesting about that difference is how wild bees interact with honeybees on sunflower farms. In standard agricultural practice, hybrid sunflowers* are planted in rows that put the male flowers, which contain the pollen, in a separate row from the female flowers, which provide nectar and, of course, produce seeds. (*I find this a bit confusing, because sunflowers are known to have both male and female parts on the same flower head. Apparently this is a peculiarity of certain hybrids, perhaps developed for easier harvesting?)

Not a sunflower farm, just a rogue sunflower in my yard with a couple of local bees getting along just fine.

Honeybees, being the focused specialized workers that they are, like to stick with collecting either pollen or nectar, and so make their way up one row of the same type of flower. As a result they do not readily move the pollen from the male to female plants.

But when wild bees (including some known as sunflower bees) are foraging on the same flowers, they annoy the honeybees by their very presence, causing the workers to fly back and forth between rows to get away from those oafs, and that results in more effective pollination. The native bees also pollinate the flowers, but their greater impact is in making the honeybees do a better job of mixing it up.

I have not had the pleasure of observing this behavior myself; I only read about it when researching my zine The Flower Lovers. However, having seen something similar in my own backyard, I can imagine the researchers observing the bee interactions being just a little bit amused at the pantomime.