Saturday, May 17, 2008

Visitors To The Buckeye Tree

The Bumble Bees are buzzing around the Buckeye Tree. I'm not exactly sure if they are Bumble Bees or Carpenter Bees but my friend Abe Lincoln would know. Check out Abe's' Bird Blog for some great pictures. The Ohio Buckeye Tree is in full glory and should produce a lot of Buckeyes this year.
The Bumblebees are the most frequent and hardest working visitor.
You can see the pollen build-up on some of the legs.
They really dig into their work.
Check out this guy reaching way in to get the nectar for the nest.
There are a few Honey Bees on the tree but not as imposing as the Bumblebees. It has a red pollen build-up on it's leg.
There is also this black and white striped bee on the tree. I'm not sure what it is but it takes a different attack on the blossoms. Maybe Tom from Ohio Nature would know, he is a very knowledgeable naturalist and I learn a lot at his sight.
I made this rare find on one of the leaves a Lady Bug in all its glory.
These bees perform a valuable service to the tree by spreading the pollen throughout the tree.

9 comments:

Michele said...

Good job. The bees are mighty busy, aren't they? They are just starting to appear here now that nature has come alive and boy the temperatures have just sky rocketed literally overnight. We are going up to 31 C (88 F) today and I'm not complaining so I will be heading out with my sunscreen and fishing gear out on the lakes.
Again, perfect job on the bees, I am sooo impressed!

dot said...

Great shots of the bees and the little beetle! They are all busy doing their work.

Tom said...

What a great post, stunning pictures and nice to see the Ladybird beetle

Dan said...

I am not familiar with the Buckeye tree. It looks like a relative of the Horse Chestnut tree.

Stacey Olson said...

as the weather warms up the bees come out.. I think everyone will be a bit more forgiving to these small creatures with the recent honey bee dissapearance going on.. Glad to see that some are still here to spread the pollen.

Indrani said...

You are great with your camera shooting the bees. So many of them!

Gina said...

Wonderful shots FG, that first one is
extremely good..fabulous detail!

Tom Arbour said...

Guy- The largest bumblee type thing looks like a carpenter bee. That bald spot on its thorax and the lack of any hairs on its abdomen are what I look for, but I'm certainly no expert when it comes to insects. To me, it looks like you have two other species,

Tom @ Ohio Nature

Tom Arbour said...

Continued....maybe both in the Genus apis (honeybees) but these are guesses. I'd suggest and upload or at least a look at bugguide.net, which is perhaps the coolest insect site on the internet.
Tom @ Ohio Nature