Know Your Pollinators
By Tim Harris
()
About this ebook
Tim Harris
Tim Harris has written books about nature and the environment for both children and adults, including the award-winning Migration Hotspots: the World's Best Bird Migration Sites. He lives on the edge of Epping Forest in London, England, and has been fascinated by all aspects of the natural world since a young age. After studying Norwegian glaciers at university, his quest for wildlife has seen him explore the giant dunes of the Namib Desert, climb the slopes of Popocatapetl in Mexico, camp in the Sumatran rainforest, and search the frozen Sea of Okhotsk for sea-eagles.
Read more from Tim Harris
Personal Aircraft: From Flying Cars to Backpack Helicopters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRSPB Migration Hotspots: The World's Best Bird Migration Sites Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVertical Takeoff Aircraft: From Drones to Jump Jets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSuperfast Jets: From Fighter Jets to Turbojets Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Know Your Clouds Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTriumphs of Human Flight: From Wingsuits to Parachutes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Book of Hugs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Know Your Pollinators
Related ebooks
Bees and Beekeeping Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBees of the World: A Guide to Every Family Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBees: A Natural History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5RSPB Spotlight Bumblebees Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Bee: A Celebration of Bees – And How to Save Them Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flying Creepy Crawlers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pollinators: Working the Night Shift Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWild Bees, Wasps and Ants and Other Stinging Insects Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKeeping Bees Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAttracting & Feeding Hummingbirds Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFirst Lessons in Beekeeping Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Keeping Bees: Looking After an Apiary Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFollowing the Wild Bees: The Craft and Science of Bee Hunting Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Common Bees of Eastern North America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMeetings with Moths: Discovering their Mystery and Extraordinary Lives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEat, Sleep, Fly: A Butterfly's View of Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Know Your Bees Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lore of the Honey Bee - Natural History and Bee-Keeping Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Birds & Blooms Ultimate Guide to Hummingbirds: Discover the wonders of one of nature's most magical creatures Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ultimate Bees Book for Kids: Discover the Amazing World of Bees: Facts, Photos, and Fun for Kids Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Been in Sevenstar: A 'Sevenstar' expells the Varroa and harmonizes the earth in the bees' collecting zone Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Honey Plants - Together with Those Which are of Special Value to the Beekeeper as Sources of Pollen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWildflowers of the Eastern United States: An Introduction to Common Species of Woods, Wetlands and Fields Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRational Bee-Keeping and the Prevention of Acarine Disease Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPractical Advice to Beginners in Bee-Keeping Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBee Happy!: Wit & Wisdom for a Happy Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe GIANT (Yet Tiny) Book on Insects Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBee Keeping in Maryland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Living From Bees Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Nature For You
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through Anxiety Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The God Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Family and Other Animals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shelter: A Love Letter to Trees Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lucky Dog Lessons: Train Your Dog in 7 Days Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foraging for Survival: Edible Wild Plants of North America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wild Truth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Practical Botany for Gardeners: Over 3,000 Botanical Terms Explained and Explored Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Kitchen Garden: An Inspired Collection of Garden Designs & 100 Seasonal Recipes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5SAS Survival Handbook, Third Edition: The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Anywhere Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - 10th anniversary edition: A Year of Food Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edible Wild Plants Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sapiens: A Graphic History, Volume 2: The Pillars of Civilization Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Must Say: My Life As a Humble Comedy Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Corfu Trilogy: My Family and Other Animals; Birds, Beasts and Relatives; and The Garden of the Gods Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Of Orcas and Men: What Killer Whales Can Teach Us Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Know Your Pollinators
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Know Your Pollinators - Tim Harris
BEES AND WASPS
Buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) covered with pollen.
Bees are pollinators par excellence. More than 20,000 different kinds are known. Most visit flowers to suck up energy-giving nectar. Pollen—essential for the raising of young—attaches to a bee’s body as it moves from plant to plant. Some are more efficient pollen collectors than others. For example, hairy bumblebees have pollen-gathering brushes
on various parts of their bodies. In moving from plant to plant, bees transfer pollen from the stamen of one flower to the stigma of the next, enabling pollination. Most of the pollen is taken back to the colony or the nest burrow to feed young bees.
The range of bee lifestyles is truly bewildering. In social species such as honeybees, female workers
perform most of a colony’s important functions. There is a clear differentiation between breeding queens, nonbreeding workers, and male drones. The workers make honey from nectar, pollen, and enzymes produced in their stomach, and this provides food during the winter, when nectar and pollen are unavailable.
Most bees are solitary, however, with a single female establishing a nest and laying eggs. And still more bees are kleptoparasites, breaking into the nests of other bees to lay their own eggs inside. Closely related, wasps are predatory insects but since they also visit flowers, they are pollinators too.
1Buff-tailed Bumblebee
Bombus terrestris
Characteristics
Length: Queen 0.71 in (18 mm); worker and male 0.51–0.55 in (13–14 mm).
Flight season: May–October.
Nectar sources: Very varied.
Habitat: Meadows, farmland, parks, gardens.
The large, furry, European bumblebee is a familiar sight as it forages on garden flowers. It can be identified by two orange collars
on a black background, one near the neck and one on the abdomen. The tip of the abdomen is buff in queens and males, but whitish in workers.
After emerging from hibernation in spring, a queen will start foraging busily on flowers such as sallows, plums, cherries, and gorse—and she will pick an underground site for a new colony, often an old mouse nest. Once settled, she lays eggs, which hatch into larvae. When it reaches its peak, there may be more than 500 bees in a colony, most of them workers (all females), which perform most of its important functions: foraging for food at flowers as varied as knapweeds, daisies, lavender, deadnettles, and ivy, according to the season. The workers also defend the nest from attackers and care for the larvae. Male bees, or drones, hatch from unfertilized eggs; they leave the colony when they reach adulthood to go in search of a mate, their only function.
2Eastern Bumblebee
Bombus impatiens
Characteristics
Length: Queen 0.67–0.82 in (17–21 mm); worker and male 0.39–0.67 in (10–17 mm).
Flight season: April–November.
Nectar sources: Very varied.
Habitat: Forest, farmland, parks, gardens.
This is one of North America’s most important pollinators. Abundant in the east, it is now used for greenhouse pollination in California and Mexico, far