Early Spring Pollinators: Mining Bees

Early Spring Pollinators: Mining Bees

April 6, 2018

Spring's bright native blooms provide pollen and nectar for the season’s earliest bee pollinators, the mining bees.

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Mining bees spring field note

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bright native blooms provide pollen and nectar for the season’s earliest bee pollinators, the mining bees

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There are 37 species of Andrena on MPG Ranch, the most species of any bee genus documented on the property.

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Some of North America’s smallest bees are in the Mining Bee family, Andrenidae.

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The bee wipes her antenna with a foreleg, and a lucky shot with a good macro lens reveals her delicate, segmented mouthparts, called “labial palps.”

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Nomada bees (in photos above and below) are the primary cuckoos of Andrena bees. Cuckoo bees, as the common name implies, lay their eggs in the brood cells (“nests”) of other bees.

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These predator-prey interactions are signs of complex food webs and healthy ecosystems.