The oncoming of spring is heralded by several events. Wildflowers bloom, temperature rises, and insects awaken from their wintry slumber. The latter of these is the impetus for this article. I’m sure you have heard the buzzing of the bees already, but there is more to come. Florida is host to 315 species of native bees in addition to honey bees (Apis mellifera) which are a non-native species. Native bees in Florida are separated into six families, fulfilling several niches within our landscape. This article is only focused on a few of these.
The Sweat Bees
The sweat bees fall into the family Halictidae. These vary greatly in appearance and size with the majority being very small. Often metallic black, but may also be seen in shades of green, blue, or purple they are hard to miss in your landscape. Most sweat bees are ground nesting though some can be found above. Wildflowers, stone fruits, and sunflowers are the primary nectar sources for these bees particularly in early spring.
IFAS photo: James R. Weaver, Shiala M. Naranjo, Emily Noordyke, and Rachel E. Mallinger
Bumble Bees
Bumble bees (Bombus spp.) are in the family Apidae. Ground dwelling, the queen overwinters in the soil emerging in early spring to feast on wildflower nectar. Often mistaken as carpenter bees (Xylocopta spp.), they are distinguishable by the hairs covering their bodies which are lacking in carpenter bees. They are one of two bee species seen carrying pollen sacks, honey bees being the other. All but one of the five species in this genera may be found in the Panhandle where they are important pollinators for many native and ornamental plants.
Photo Credit: Tony Wills
Mason Bees
One of our more unique species, Mason bees of family Megachilidae live above ground lining their nests with mud. Solitary by nature, these are prominent pollinators of fruit trees and blueberries. A variety of color makes them difficult to even identify as a bee. They often come in dark blue, black, or white striped. Much like honeybees, some species of mason bees are purchased from online sources specifically for orchards.
IFAS photo: Credit: Tony Wills, en.wikipedia.org
Carpenter Bees
Carpenter bees are the final subject covered here and are split into two subfamilies. Large carpenter bees (Xylocopta spp.) chew their nests into solid wood. That the wood is sometimes fence posts, water tanks or your home means that this insect may be an economic pest. These are large and as mentioned above often mistaken for bumble bees. Small carpenter bees (Ceratina spp.) are differentiated mainly by size as they are much smaller than the large carpenter bee. They may be a variety of colors as well and nest by hollowing out the pith of broken or burnt plant stems. As they make their nests in already broken plant tissue, they are not considered of economic importance.
Large Carpenter Bee IFAS photo: Paul ChoateSmall Carpenter Bee Photo: USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab
Conclusion
Native bees are an important part of pollination in the Florida Panhandle. It is worthwhile to get to know which species are active in your landscape. Provide habitat and nectar to them, and they will help your plant life bloom. For more information on creating habitat for native pollinators, see this Ask IFAS document, or contact your local extension agent for additional information on this and any topic regarding your gardens and more.
Do you enjoy a tasty bowl of fruit in the morning? Or maybe a hot steaming cup of coffee? If the answer is yes, then raise (or tip) your hat to our pollinators. About 75% of food crops depend on pollination to some extent, but pollinators provide the bulk of the pollination for over 80% of the world’s flowering plants. A pollinator can be birds, bats, or even small mammals but, insects such as ants, bees, beetles, wasps, butterflies, and moths do the bulk of the pollination that affects our daily lives.
Plants normally benefits from attracting a particular type of pollinator to their flowers, ensuring transfer and hopefully resulting in reproduction. The pollinator benefits from its adaptation of a particular flower with different traits to access nectar and pollen. These floral traits include odor, color, size, flower shape, reward type, amount, nectar composition, and timing of flowering. This plant pollinator interaction is known as pollination syndrome.
Did you know –
That tubular red flowers with a lot of nectar often attract birds.
Also, foul smelling flowers attract carrion flies or beetles.
Butterflies and moths can help spread pollen; however, they don’t have any specialized structures for collecting pollen.
Beetles pollinate more than 80% of all flowers – clusters of flowers are ideal because beetles are clumsy fliers.
While bees are drawn to plants on the blue, white, purple, and yellow color spectrum. Bees possessing hairs and other specialized anatomical structures that can readily collect and transfer pollen, making them an important plant pollinator. However, the honey bee, (Apis spp.) is the world’s top pollinator and is responsible for one-third of what we eat, yet they are just a small representative of all the bee species.
UF/IFAS Photo: Rodger Evans
FAMU/UF/IFAS Photo: Donna Arnold
Did you Know-
Everyone can contribute to pollinators by creating a home garden. Pollinators will make use of food and habitat anywhere it is found – roadsides, open fields, pastures, backyard flower gardens etc. One can be pollinator friendly by doing any of the activities below:
Plant an assortment of plants – varying in color, size and type to support a greater number and diversity of pollinators.
Plant nativeplants – as they are considered the best choice due to their abundance of nectar and pollen, among other benefits.
Use little or no pesticides – instead maintain a sustainable garden with the suitable plant species that will support natural beneficial insects—reducing the need for pest control.
Educate– others about the importance of pollinators.
Seasonal planting – Choose pollinator plants that bloom in spring, summer, and fall. Timing is crucial – plant flowers in clumps that bloom in early spring (emerging winter hibernation) and late summer (preparing for hibernation) so bees have adequate food supply.
Provide habitat or installbat boxes. Bats play a vital role in pollinating flowers and dispersing seeds.
UF/IFAS Photo: Tyler Jones
Helpful Hint: Did you know dandelions are the first food for bees emerging in the spring. Leave them in your yard and feed the bees!
The UF/IFAS Extension Bay County Pollinator Garden is the proud recipient of a Little Free Library built, stocked, and installed by the Bay County Library Foundation. We were incredibly fortunate the foundation had the perfect box designed and painted by local artist Heather Clements just waiting for the perfect place to be installed!
You might be asking yourself, how does a Little Free Library work? It’s very simple, if you want a book you take one and if you have a book to donate you leave it in the box. Our box includes books for all ages and reading levels including children’s books in English and Spanish and of course gardening and wildlife topics. As people exchange books the titles and topics will change and evolve over time.
If you are in Panama City I hope you will take a moment to pick out a book and enjoy our demonstration gardens at 2728 E. 14th Street, Panama City and visit the virtual garden for educational information about the garden inventory.
Looking for a Little Free Library near you or Interested in starting one? Visit https://littlefreelibrary.org/start/ or contact your local library to find out more information.
Need an excuse to not mow your lawn this month? UF/IFAS Extension agents in the Florida Panhandle are asking residents to skip their soon-to-be-weekly outdoor chore until the calendar flips to April.
The idea for “No Mow March” is borrowed from “No Mow May,” a concept begun in the United Kingdom that has now spread to northern parts of the United States.
“Obviously, our lawns are growing way too quickly by the time May rolls around,” said Beth Bolles, UF/IFAS Escambia County horticulture agent who is leading the pilot effort this year. “Here in North Florida, March is our transition period, when grass is exiting dormancy. But it’s also when pollinators are starting to become more active, so it’s the perfect time to celebrate them and promote their health and habitat.”
Bolles is quick to point out, though, that the month is about more than just turf.
“We recognize that some communities have rules to follow regarding their lawns,” she said. “There are other things you can do to encourage pollinators to visit, whether it’s container plants or adding new shrubs or pollinator houses. We encourage everyone to find their own way to participate.”
The first step in participating is to sign the pledge at go.ufl.edu/NoMowMarch. Visitors can also use the website to find virtual or in-person events geared to the topic, learn tips for adhering to homeowners association guidelines while still promoting pollinators, and record observations to a No Mow group on iNaturalist.
This article was written by: Joanna Jaramillo Silva1, Rachel Mallinger2, Xavier Martini3
1 Ph.D. Student, University of Florida, Department of Entomology and Nematology
2 Assistant Professor, University of Florida, Department of Entomology and Nematology
3 Assistant Professor, North Florida Research and Education Center, University of Florida, Department of Entomology and Nematology
Bees are the primary pollinators of plants, essential in natural and crop environments for guaranteeing global food security to the human population. Florida is home of more than 300 species of native wild bees, which rely on pollen and nectar from flowers to survive. However, a global pollinator decline reported for honeybees and wild species (including insects, birds, and bats), is decreasing the worldwide provision of pollination services. Food limitation (pollen and nectar), resulting from decreasing flower diversity and quantity, is one of the multiple causes of pollinator decline. Pollinator-friendly plants are receiving attention from people of various disciplines such as the scientific community, stakeholders, Master Gardeners, and citizen science groups willing to participate in pollinator conservation efforts.
Domestic gardens
Domestic gardens comprise a substantial proportion of land in the urban landscape and are often the most significant component of green space; they play essential roles in conserving plant genetic resources, insects, and other wildlife, and have social and economic value. Gardens behave as islands of usable habitat surrounded by urbanization, and they present varying benefits for pollinators. There is generally a positive relationship between high pollinator abundance, flower diversity, and bloom evenness. Gardens for pollinators propose to solve the pollinator crisis by enlarging greenspaces in urban areas by planting more flowers in urbanized environment and by improving the diversity of floral resources for pollinators.
Pollinator friendly plants
There are different categories of floral traits: qualities that attract pollinators such as floral size and color, and physical characteristics that reward the pollinator (nectar and pollen quantity and quality). Flowers with higher quality and quantity rewards are more attractive to pollinators. Nectar provides the main sugar source for insect pollinators; its energetic value is determined by its sugar concentration. The volume of nectar produced by flowers will directly affected visitation by honeybees and bumblebees, butterflies, and birds. Pollen on the other side, consists of the main source of protein for most pollinators.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Provide a Mix of floral shapes and sizes.
There is usually a positive correlation between flower size and nectar volume: long tube flowers usually provide more nectar, whereas open or flat flowers provide more pollen. In addition, flower shapes are also associated with different pollinator types (Fig. 1). Long-tongued insects (Butterflies, and some bees) visit deep corolla tube flowers, while short-tongued pollinators (wasps, flies and some bees) remain on short tube or open corolla flowers.
Figure 1. Examples of plants with long tube flowers, short-medium, and open corolla flowers (From left to right: Butterfly on a Pardon my pink (Monarda didyma) (Credits: Joanna J. Silva); Carpenterbee on Salvia Indigo spires (Salvia longispicata x farinaceae) (Credits: Kelly Thomas); Sweat bee on Gaillardia pulchella) (Credits: Joanna J. Silva).
2. Provide a mix of flower colors
Color patterns influence the flower’s attractiveness and increase the efficiency of pollination by helping insects orient on the flower and guide them to the reward (Fig. 2). Bees prefer white, yellow, or blue-purple flowers. Orange, pink, and red flowers attract other pollinators such as butterflies.
Figure 2. Examples of native plants to Florida that display different colors Native to Florida (From left to right: Butterfly on Spanish needles (Bidens alba), Tickseed coreopsis (Coreopsis leavenworthii), Sckullcap (Scutellaria arrenicola), Pitcher sage (Salvia azurea), Swamp Rose-mallow (Hibiscus grandiflorus), Carpenterbee on False-Rosemary (Conradina grandiflora), Spotted beebalm (Monarda puctata), Blanket flower or Firewheel* (Gaillardia pulchella) . Credits: Joanna J. Silva *A recent discovery suggests that Firewheel is not considered native to Florida, but it is widely cultivated. It is probably not native to the rest of the eastern USA as previously thought (ISB: Atlas of Florida Plants (usf.edu), Gaillardia – University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (ufl.edu)).
3. Include a pollinator hotel
Add a bee nest box for the native bees that build their nests above ground. Solitary bees and wasps will take up residence in a pollinator hotel after you place it outside.
4. Provide flowers throughout the year.
Pollen and nectar collection varies seasonally for honeybees, while many other solitary bee species collect pollen continuously during adult foraging to feed their larvae. Design the garden to have three or more different plants blooming at any given time during the growing season, which is March through November in northern areas of the state (Fig. 3).
Figure 3. Honeybee on Viburnum (Winter) (Credits: Joanna J. Silva), Honeybee on Salvia Indigo spires taking nectar (Spring-Summer) (Credits: Walker Bensch), False Rosemary and Muhlly grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris) (Fall) (Credits: Joanna J. Silva).
5. Include native plants.
A “Florida native plant” refers to a species occurring within the state boundaries prior to European contact, according to the best available scientific and historical documentation. Florida is home to over 4,867 species of plants; 3,314 species are considered native of which 230 species are endemic.
6. Chose the right plant for each location.
Success depends on using the right plant in the right place, especially by considering plant’s cold hardiness (Fig. 4). Plant selection for landscapers, nurseries, and gardens requires individual site criteria and an evaluation of individual plant performance under different environmental circumstances, such as water, soil, and temperature.
Figure 4. Hardiness zones in Florida (http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov).
The days are getting shorter, the sun setting earlier each day, and the temperatures are beginning to dip. All the signs are there, we’ve reached autumn which means it’s time for many roadside wildflowers to begin their bloom cycle. Surely, you’ve seen them as you drive down the road, small colorful patches in the ditch or as almost blinding yellows across vast fields. The vibrant yellow in this latter example is that of goldenrod (Solidago spp.). A name attributed to many plants in Asteraceae better known as the Daisy family, they serve to feed pollinators when other plants begin to fade. Two of the most common in the panhandle are seaside goldenrod (Solidago sempervirens) and Canada goldenrod (Solidago canadensis).
Coastal Goldenrod
Seaside goldenrod will be most prevalent in the coastal counties along the panhandle. It thrives on beach dunes in tidal marshes and disturbed coastal areas. Tolerance to saline soils and sea spray allow growth in these environments. A clumping perennial, it grows to 6.6 feet clumping with a 1.6 foot spread. The flowers of this plant bloom in autumn on a spiked inflorescence as tubular disk florets. They are pollinated by several types of insects and birds. This plant was used as far back as the Roman times to treat several medical conditions.
Photo: Joshua Criss
Inland Goldenrod
Canada goldenrod is found in Florida almost exclusively in the panhandle with a few pockets as holdouts in the peninsula. Not as common along the coast, this plant prefers to take hold in ditches and open meadows. At 1-7 feet tall with it spreads via underground stems known as rhizomes. Rhizomatous plants such as these are traditionally difficult to control and may become weedy in some situations. Yellow ray style flowers present in clusters at the end of stems on drooping panicles. Pollen form this plant is often blamed for fall allergies, but does not tend to travel far on the wind making this an unlikely source. As with the seaside goldenrod, this plant was used traditionally as a medicine in ancient times.
Photo: Joshua Criss
Summing it up
Goldenrod along with many autumn blooming wild flowers may be something you’ve put very little thought into. They are proven winners in terms of late season pollinator support. Often overlooked in the home landscape, plants like goldenrod may bring a new twist to your home gardens. They require little water and fertilizer and grow well in our area. For more information on Florida wildflowers, see these Ask IFAS documents, or contact your local extension agent for additional information on this and any topic regarding your gardens and more.
