BEES AND POLLINATIONS

–Richard

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We had a lot of fun making naughty limericks up at the Bug Blog, but I thought people might be interested in the actual winner of the REAL Entomological Society of America (Not-At-All-Ribald-Please-Keep-It-Clean) Limerick contest. The winning limerick was not only clever, it illustrates an interesting relationship between two firefly species.

The Official ESA Winner:

Au Naturel Selection: Photinus meets Photuris

A firefly who was benighted
saw a light and became so excited–
he rushed to his fate
while selecting a mate:
lost his head, lost his heart, was de-lighted.

~Martha Lutz

Love it!

In case you aren’t familiar with the two genera of fireflies referenced in the limerick, their clever and deadly system of sexual mimicry was first described by Thomas Eisner.  The flashes that attract males from the genus Photinus could be from female Photinus fireflies that want a hookup. But they could also be from the “Femmes Fatales” of the genus Photuris. They don’t want to have sex–they want to have a snack.

Photinus males aren’t just flashy dudes–they contain defensive chemicals in their blood. These chemicals repel predators like spiders. The Photuris females steal these chemicals from the males…by eating them.  As you can see in the photos above, there isn’t much left when she’s done. Just some wings, like an empty candy bar wrapper.

The graph on the left is from tests of 29 females/group exposed to predator spiders–one group of females that had eaten Photinus males (“Fed”), and another group of females that haven’t had the special love bite (“Unfed”).  Just eating two males is enough to completely protect the Photuris females from spider predators!

So pity the Photinus male; when out cruising for love, he must choose very, very carefully who he flashes.

You can read Eisner’s original paper here.  I’m tempted to call it a “seminal” work.

Eisner T, Goetz MA, Hill DE, Smedley SR, & Meinwald J (1997). Firefly “femmes fatales” acquire defensive steroids (lucibufagins) from their firefly prey. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 94 (18), 9723-8 PMID: 9275191

Filed under: Entomology, Insects, Science Tagged: fireflies, limericks, mimicry, poetry
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First, I’m sorry I’ve been rather lax in my postings.  I hope some of you have taken the opportunity to review some of the old posts while you wondered where in the world I was.

Last week was my birthday, my middle daughter was visiting from Maryland, my youngest daughter here in Atlanta is pregnant, due any day, and I hosted Thanksgiving for my family at my house.

Needless to say, the bees have taken a back seat.

However, over this weekend I checked on most of my Atlanta hives.  Most appear to be going into winter with good supplies.  I fed the bees bee tea going into the fall and most of the hives were slow to take any food, which is a good sign.  Generally they would prefer nectar and around my house we had a pretty good fall aster bloom (and therefore a decent fall flow).  So they haven’t taken the bee tea because they didn’t really need it.

For example, I put these two feeder jars on the Blue Heron nuc on 11/14.  Here it is almost two weeks later and they’ve barely touched it.  So I can feel pretty sure that they don’t need it.  

One of the advantages of the rapid feeder is that it can stay on the hive during the winter.  A second advantage is that thick sugar syrup rarely freezes so if it is warm enough for the bees to move around, the syrup is there for their taking.  So my 8 frame hives will keep the rapid feeder through the winter.

Plans for winter:
1.  Make creamed honey from the early honey this season that has crystallized
2.  Build my unbuilt nuc boxes
3.  Paint equipment and assess my equipment needs
4.  Try to look for a possible local place to put the beehives from south Georgia
5.  Make plans about our bee business Linda Ts Bees with Jeff to determine where we need to focus come spring
6.  Work on my short course talk with Cindy Hodges on the year in the bee yard in a beginning beekeeper’s year.
7.  Work out a sugar shake schedule to begin in January for all the hives.
8.  Decide about splits – surely I can split Colony Square and probably Lenox Pointe as well.

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For the first time this year, the Atlanta Botanical Garden has a new event, a festival of lights that is really beautiful. We toured the whole thing the Friday right after Thanksgiving….along with about 2999 other people.

It was really spectacular – especially the display in the main plaza.

When we got to the back side of the garden, they have an herb wall garden.  Each brick of the wall has herbs growing on/from it.  In front of these herbs is a display of bees created from light.  We, of course, just had to take pictures!  My daughter took all of these below.

One of the bees up close and personal.

Here I am in front of one of the bees.

And again.

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While walking my dogs past my friend and fellow beekeeper’s house, I saw Jerry sitting in his driveway. He usually keeps a solar wax melter about at this place in his driveway and keeps it working all during the warm months.

But now we are about to have cold weather. Snow is expected on Tuesday (it won’t stick, if it shows up, because the ground is much too warm) – snow in Atlanta in November.

Jerry has taken on a non-beekeeping task. He is hulling walnuts in a special frame he built for this purpose. He hauled five huge bags of unhulled walnuts from Missouri in the back of his truck.

Now he sits in his canvas chair and pokes at the walnuts with a shovel until the shell falls off.

Here is the second phase of the walnut after Jerry’s shovel has had its way with them.

Beekeepers come up with many ways to while away the winter!

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I’ve been a bit remiss in noting this year’s blogging scholarship, which awards $10,000 to a student blogger to help support her/him in college. As readers may recall, last year we helped Nerdy…

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National Moth Week is a new project celebrating moths and biodiversity in the US.

July 23-29, 2012

They can be amazing mimics; they can be as tiny as the head of a pin. They can be huge with surprising underwing patterns, like the moth on the Moth Week Logo.

The purpose of Moth Week is two-fold; to encourage people to go outside and look at the life around them, and also to encourage people to document and submit what they see as part of a larger citizen science project.

You don’t need to know what you are looking at to participate–if you post your images on the Discover Life site (following the protocol), they will identify them for you!

You can find instructions for having a Moth Party at your house on the Discover Life website, too.  I plan to have a Moth Night Celebration at my house in Connecticut; let me know if you are interested!  I live in a perfect area for mothing–streams, a big pond, forest, and agricultural land all near me.  We’ll get lots of interesting insects, including moths.

Join me in being one Bad Moth-er…
(Shut your mouth!)

Some great resources:

• How to light trap moths (PDF)
• How to bait for moths (PDF)
• BugGuide has photos of most common moths in the US!

Filed under: Entomology, Gardening, Insects, Science Tagged: fun, Lepidoptera, moths, outdoors
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Esox Lucius, 19lbs

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via youtube.com
Posted via email from Darwin’s Bulldogs

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