Trap Nest

Inexplicably hot and windy. Clouds of White Pine flower debris blew down from our neighbor's trees, forming brown crunchy drifts in our driveway, several inches deep in places. Lisa did some yard work, enjoying the heat, accompanied by several Common Whitetail dragonflies. Lida and I ducked the heat as best we could indoors.

Inspecting the bee block in our front yard garden, I noticed one of the trap nests placed below the block was freshly sealed. The plug at the opening was dark green, a plaster of minced and masticated plant material. This alone indicated the nest belonged to a bee and not a mason wasp (though it's true that some bees use clay to partition and seal their nests as well). The wood grain of the trap nest wasn't as linear as it look from the outside and I had some difficulty splitting it open. The diameter was 3/8" and the depth was 11.5 cm. Inside, after the opening plug and a small gap, where ten cells in series. With the exception of the deepest cell, the one furthest from the opening which seemed to contain a cocoon and pupated larva, each cell contained a nearly full grown larva. The cell divisions were constructed of the same material as the entrance plug. Some portion of the pollen stores remained in the outermost cells and the larvae were not full grown. After photographs, the nest was closed, the two halves put back together, taped to seal the cracks and placed in a container so that the adults, when they emerge in a month or so, can be observed and identified before being released.

A second indoor observation. The moth had emerged from the pupa collected last week in northern Minnesota. That pupa had been found in the flowerhead of a Purple Pitcher Plant. A Verbena Bud Moth, a colorful Olethreutine leafroller moth that feeds on a large variety of bog and wetland plants.

Publicado el junio 11, 2017 04:12 MAÑANA por