Bees earn a lot of air miles during August, but it’s no holiday.
On average they will fly four kilometres to forage this
month compared to just 400 meters in spring. It's necessary because
of a shortage of flowers; most wild flowers have gone over so the bees are spending
more time foraging around gardens and allotments.
Competition is intense and choice limited; just spend a few
minutes watching insect activity on buddleia or oregano and you will see
butterflies, bumblebees, hover flies and honey bees all competing for the nectar.
When competition is this tough it’s hardly surprising that someone decides to cheat....
like this young lady.
She’s in our local allotment stealing nectar from runner
bean flowers. Normally flowers provide
nectar to bees in exchange for pollination services, but this little minx has
decided to skip scrambling around inside the flower and is helping herself to the
nectar by sipping it directly from a hole in the corolla tube.
It’s easy honey. But although it looks bad on the honey
bee, someone else cheated first.
A bumble bee! Both the white-tailed and the buff-tailed bumble bees bite holes at the bottom of runner bean flowers so that they can get to the nectar without having
to clamber inside.
When a honey bee lands on the flower the first thing she
does is check whether a bumble bee has already punctured the flower. Although
the bumble bee will have taken most of the nectar there’s always some left
over, and it’s easy work.
In the mornings most flowers haven’t been visited
by bumble bees so there’s no hole. Instead the honey bee climbs inside the flower to
get a full dose of nectar in exchange for pollinating the flower. But by late
afternoon most flowers have been holed, so climbing inside would
be a waste of effort.
The honey bees are just being sensible - the bumble bees are
the real cheats.
So if your runner beans aren't setting you know who to blame. Although in the round bumble bees do a great job in the
allotment pollinating all sorts of plants, ... like courgettes!
(Can you ever have
too many?)
