Breaking and entering

[Chris 345]

I am fascinated by pollinating insects and their interaction with various plants. In the morning, bumblebees go into apparent ecstasy while working self sown, annual poppy flowers in our garden. The activity drops off later in the day, however, and the poppy flowers are short lived anyway. In contrast, a dahlia called ‘Bright Eyes’ that we grow has longer lasting flowers and keeps pollinating insects busy all day.

Bees and bumblebees have a somewhat different relationship with our Japanese anemones. Although these insects do visit the mature flowers, they seem far more interested in ‘breaking and entering’ the buds. I presume that this is because the buds have a larger or more tasty store of nectar than the older flowers. The insects begin by pulling back the outer bud covers and gradually work their way inside. Eventually they form a sort of ‘cave’ in which they spend much more time per visit than they do on open flowers. My tentative conclusion would be that the plant stores a large amount of nectar in the developing bud but does not put much effort into replacing nectar in the mature flower. How the insects know to break open the buds on the Japanese anemone is another question.




1 Mature flower




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[MacUser2]

These are amazing shots!!!

How do you get the critters to cooperate? When I try to get shots with bugs, they are a disaster.

 

[macrouser]

Great shots showing the behavior you descibe. I haven't seen the break and inter but they like to get in the flower as soon as they can. I don't know how much nector there is but there is a lot of pollen.

 

[Chris 345]

These are amazing shots!!!

How do you get the critters to cooperate? When I try to get shots with bugs, they are a disaster.

I have a reliable set up consisting of SLR, 100mm macro lens and flash with camera support. Using flash means that I don't usually have to worry about subject movement and have enough light for f11 and good depth of field. I have been trying to photograph insects for over 60 years and so have had plenty of practice. When approaching a subject, I keep in mind the best angle for good subject depth and look what the background will be like. Of course, you don't see all the images I delete once they reach our computer.

Chris

 

[Newbie Phewbie]

Interesting observations on the behavior. Who knows exactly what goes on in those tiny brains!

On our hydrangea bush, the bees/wasps/flies seem to ignore the flowers when they first open, but about a week later, they're all over them.

the flowering sedums are all the rage right now. I wonder if they have social media in the bug world.

Our neighbor has a bush full of purple blossoms (I don't know what they're called) but the bugs are ignoring it for now in favor of the Sedums.

I don't understand people who get bored.

 

[MacUser2]

Thank you, I'll give it a try. Hopefully, I'll have success before it gets cold.

 

[D Cox]

"How the insects know to break open the buds on the Japanese anemone is another question."

How do instincts and behavior get inherited at all ? How can behavior be encoded in DNA ?

This is one of the greatest mysteries of biology. I suppose we know something about physics and chemistry, but the science of biology is mostly undiscovered territory.

 

[JerseySailor]

I have a reliable set up consisting of SLR, 100mm macro lens and flash with camera support. Using flash means that I don't usually have to worry about subject movement and have enough light for f11 and good depth of field. ..............

Even at f11, the DOF in several of those great shots was still pretty shallow. It would be interesting to see what better DOF you might get by going to f16 - or higher. Using your flash, that gives you the power to try that.

 

[Sylvan120]

Nice shots. I never really paid much attention to it before, but today I noticed the bees doing the same with our Japanese anemones. Most of ours are getting old and stale but some new ones are still opening up and the bees do love to enter the just opening flower to take a bath in that pollen.