When you hear the word “pollinator”, what is the first insect that comes to mind? If I had to guess, you would probably say honey bee. European honey bees play an important role in agriculture as pollinators and honey producers, but there are hundreds of native pollinators often overshadowed by the beloved honey bee you should know about, too!
One such group of pollinators native to Florida are sweat bees. Sweat bees get their unfortunate name from their nutritional requirements of salt that are sometimes sourced from sweaty humans. They rarely sting but are capable, and they can certainly be annoying to people when they lick salt off their skin. This behavior tends to get more attention than their important role as pollinators.
A subgroup of sweat bees are furrow bees. Furrow bees nest in the ground or rotting wood and may be solitary or eusocial. In-ground nests are composed of branching tunnels in sandy soil at a depth between 8 inches and 3 feet with a small entry roughly the size of a pencil. Within the tunnels, the mother creates individual cells stocked with nectar and pollen and lays an egg. The larva feeds on these provisions and pupates underground eventually emerging as an adult. The life cycle can vary from a few weeks to a year or more depending on species and environmental conditions.
Furrow bees are generalist feeders which means they will visit many different flowers, so diverse landscapes are attractive to them. In my northwest Florida garden, I see them often on sunflowers, Black-eyed Susan, coneflower, cosmos, tithonia, zinnia, and tickseed.
Poey’s Furrow Bee is a common visitor to sunflowers. J_McConnell, UF/IFAS
Homeowners may consider growing Frogfruit, Phyla nodiflora as a companion plant in turf areas. Learn the qualities of this groundcover with UF IFAS Extension Escambia County.
Like finding buried treasure on a desert island, walking up on a mound of sandhill milkweed (Asclepias humistrata) may elicit cries of excitement from someone who understands what they’re seeing. And not unlike searching for pirate booty, there’s a bit of danger involved, too—milkweed is highly toxic.
The eye-catching pink coloration of the leaves, stems, and complex flowers make this variety of milkweed stand out among the dunes. Photo credit: Carrie Stevenson, UF IFAS Extension
Last month in the dunes of Perdido Key, our Master Naturalist class found robust clusters of eye-catching, pink-tinged leaves, blooms, and buds of sandhill milkweed. Also known as pinewoods milkweed, this variety thrives in dry, sandy soils. It is native to the southeast, found typically in the wilds of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Its genus name, “Asclepias” refers to the Greek god of healing—indigenous people have used the plant for medicinal purposes (dysentery treatment and wart removal, in particular) for centuries. The species name humistrata means “spreading,” which describes the growth habit of the plant. Milkweed is highly toxic, so we do not recommend trying any medicinal uses at home! The “milk” part of the common name refers to its sap, which is a thick, sticky, white substance containing that toxic chemical.
The seedpods of sandhill milkweed are large and full of seeds with wispy fibers that allow them to float through the air for dispersal. Photo credit: Gabriel Campbell, UF/IFAS
As the only food source for the monarch caterpillar, healthy milkweed plants are crucial for maintaining populations of the famous monarch butterfly. The plant itself is rather complex and beautiful. Its five-petaled blooms grow in tight clusters, on stalks sticking several inches off the ground. The leaves are broad and a deep forest green, edged in the pale maroon/pink of the stems and flowers. The seedpods of milkweed are quite large (3-6” long), resembling pea pods and full of seeds. Each seed has a wispy white fiber attached, which helps it disperse in the wind like a dandelion. The fibers have been used for years as stuffing for pillows and mattresses, and were used for life jackets during World War 2.
Numerous monarch caterpillars feed on a sandhill milkweed plant. Photo credit: Carrie Stevenson, UF IFAS Extension
The first cluster of milkweed we found was host to multiple monarch caterpillars, recognizable by their greenish-yellow, white, and black stripes. By the time you see caterpillars, the milkweed is already working its magic, transferring its toxins to the insects but causing them no harm. Monarchs have evolved the capability to digest and metabolize this poison, which would induce heart attacks in nearly any vertebrate animal. Adult monarchs use several nectar sources, including milkweed flowers, and females lay their eggs on the plant so that their young can begin eating once hatched.
In the animal kingdom, red and orange are signs of danger. The bright orange coloration of an adult monarch butterfly serves as a warning to would-be predators to exhibit caution, as the toxins from their food sources stay within the butterfly’s body. The copycat viceroy, soldier, queen, and Gulf fritillary butterflies benefit from this trait by using mimicry in their own orange coloration to ward off predators.
Last spring, I attended a seminar at the UF/IFAS North Florida Research and Education Center in Quincy hosted by the Gardening Friends of the Big Bend (GFBB). Brie Arthur was the guest speaker and taught us about foodscaping, gardening with grains, and other traditionally agronomic crops that I had not considered for my landscape. Excited by her presentation I made some purchases at the GFBB plant sale including a small sandwich bag filled with sesame seed. Little did I know this would turn out to be one of my favorite plants last summer!
My first attempt at growing sesame was in a flower bed that received overspray from turf irrigation and about 6 hours of direct sunlight. The plants were small and although they flowered, were nothing to get excited about. Despite this lackluster first attempt, a few weeks later I threw some seed out alongside sunflower seeds in a different bed that receives full sun, no irrigation, and has sandy soil. I watered by hand for about two weeks, if we received no rain, to get the seeds to germinate and seedlings off to a decent start. The foliage that emerged in this bed looked so different from the first batch of sesame that I thought that I had mixed up my seeds. The foliage was wider and the plant was denser compared to my first attempt. I was completely stumped on what I was growing and started sending pictures to colleagues. Nobody knew what I was growing and apps just confused the issue further. Once it bloomed it resembled sesame, but I was still puzzled, so I took lots of photos and sent them to UF Extension Botanist Marc Frank. He confirmed that all these vastly different looking plants were indeed sesame! He advised that the long history of cultivation has led to extreme variability in the species which was certainly on display in my garden. This was a good reminder that the best way to identify plants is with their flowers.
For weeks, the sesame bloomed and was bombarded by bumble bees and other pollinators. To encourage more flowering, I continued to deadhead instead of letting it go to seed. We had summer thunderstorms that knocked it over and it just sent new stems skyward and kept on blooming. The sesame thrived in the harshest part of my garden until winter set in. Since I was growing it for pollinators I kept deadheading and never attempted to harvest seed.
Sesame is very drought tolerant and is sensitive to too much water or humidity, so plant it in a spot with well-drained soil, good air flow, and away from irrigation overspray for best results.
Narrow green leaf variation of sesame plant with white-lavender bell shaped flowers. JMcConnell, UF/IFASBroad leaf variation of sesame. JMcConnell, UF/IFASSesame with broad leaves looked very different than narrow leaf variation. JMcConnell, UF/IFASBumble bees were frequent visitors to sesame flowers throughout the summer. JMcConnell, UF/IFAS
It’s a bit early still for blueberries in north Florida, but they are definitely on the horizon. We have a handful of bushes at home and the office, and I’ve noticed the white blooms are gone and berries are forming as we speak. Many of us, myself included, look forward to the late-spring harvest of blueberries, taking our children out to u-pick operations and hunting down family recipes for blueberry-filled desserts.
Often, when people think of fruit growing in the wild, their minds naturally go to tropical rainforests, with visions of bananas, mangoes, and drooping fruit-laden trees. But blueberries are a home-grown local Panhandle fruit. A walk through any self-respecting northwest Florida wooded area is bound to have blueberry bushes growing wild. Vaccinium species thrive in more acidic soil, (between 4-6 on pH scale), which we have in abundance here. In northwest Florida, we have lots of pines and oaks dropping needles and leaves, seasoning our soil to a 6 or lower on the pH scale. Central and south Florida soils are alkaline due to all of the natural limestone, so while blueberries are grown on farms down south, they’re rarer in the wild.
Blueberries are pollinated by bees of many stripes, but most people are unaware of the specialized bee that literally lives for this season. During the last few weeks, this species has been furiously pollinating blueberry bushes during its short, single-purpose lifetime.
The blueberry bee uses “buzz pollination” on blueberry shrubs. Photo by Tyler Jones.
Southeastern blueberry bees (Habropoda labriosa) are active only in mid-March to April when blueberry plants are in flower. They are smaller than bumblebees, and yellow patches on their heads can differentiate males. Blueberry pollen is heavy and sticky, so it is not blown by the wind, and the flower anatomy is such that pollen from the male anther will not just fall onto the female stigma. Blueberry bees must instead attach themselves to the flower and rapidly vibrate their flight muscles, shaking the pollen out. Moving to the next flower, the bee’s vibrations will drop pollen from the first flower onto the next one. This phenomenon is called “sonicating” or ‘buzz pollination” and is the most effective method of creating a prolific blueberry crop.
The blueberry bee has a solitary and nearly single-focused lifestyle, yet one of great importance. Photo courtesy USGS
This native bee lives most of its life underground, emerging in the spring when blueberries are in bloom and living long enough to pollinate the plants. Blueberry bees do not form hives, but create solitary nests in open, sunny, high ground. Females will dig a tunnel with a brood chamber large enough for one larva, filling it with nectar and pollen. After laying an egg, the female seals the chamber and the next generation is ready. The species produces only one generation of adults per year.
By the time we are picking fresh blueberries in May and June, you probably won’t see any blueberry bees around. However, we should all consider these insects’ short-lived but vitally important role in Florida’s $70 million/year blueberry industry!
