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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (May 30, 2018)
Wednesday, May 30, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon BEE: Pollinators play vital role in Sisters’ ecosystem Continued from page 20 is, prior to contacting Rich Hatfield of the Xerces Society. He’s the bumble bee expert at the society’s headquarters in Portland, and I send him my bumble bee photos for ID. Rich graciously informed me that Sue’s photo was of a car- penter bee, not a bumble bee. I’ve come to realize how vital all our native bees are to the health and welfare of our natural ecosystems and human welfare. So much so that I’ve given up my life-long love affair with the European honeybee. My wonderful old Great Uncle Moulton Alexander Rockefeller intro- duced me to them when I was a young teenager and collected a swarm for him from one of the apples trees in the old fam- ily farm’s apple orchard. No one loves honey-on- demand in their backyard bet- ter than I do, but I’ve come to realize that my sweet European bees were competing unfavor- ably with the native pollina- tors, especially bumble bees, so I’ve given up bee-keeping in favor of protecting our native bees. If helping native pollinators for their own sake isn’t enough, consider this: The carpenter bee pollinates the hops that help make good-tasting beer. Carpenter bees are in the genus Xylocopa, (pronounced zy-lo-cope-ah), and I was relieved to learn I’m not the first one to confuse them with bumble bees. There are some 500 species of carpenter bees in 31 subgenera found throughout the world, and most of them look very much alike. The common name “car- penter bee” derives from their nesting behavior: they bur- row into hard plant material. My hunch is the Great Sandy Desert variety nest in dead sagebrush and juniper. Carpenter bees do not enjoy the complex social structure of hive bees; instead, they live as you and I do — in pairs. The female carpenter bee bores a nesting hole and guards her young while the male patrols. While carpenter bees are traditionally considered soli- tary bees, some species have simple social nests in which mothers and daughters cohabit and work together like a com- mune. Examples of this type of social behavior can be seen in two species found in the west- ern U.S. When these females cohabit, they work together and share responsibilities; one female does all the foraging and egg-laying, while the other females are doing the guard- ing. Normally, only one gen- eration of bees live in the nest. The sting of the carpenter bee can really hurt! The males are fiercely territorial, dive- bombing and attempting to drive away anyone or any- thing that approaches the nest. However, the males are all buzz and no bite/sting. They can make only admirable but empty threats, because male carpenter bees lack stingers. They may be able to scare the daylights out of you, but it’s only the female carpenter bees that are capable of following up on it, stinging the intruder. If you’re as pig-headed as I am and want to get to know carpenter bees as well as pos- sible, you will get stung — I guarantee it! I have had this honor. The sting of a carpen- ter bee is similar to that of a bumblebee that delivers a venom containing melittin, which causes pain (lots of it), plus swelling and redness in the area around the sting site. Unlike the honeybee female that has a barbed stinger and can only sting once, the carpenter bee has a smooth stinger and can — like a wasp — give it to you again and again. The typical sharp pain follows for a few minutes, a dull ache after that, and the site can/will remain sensitive to the touch and also itch for a few days. Carpenter bee stings are not dangerous for most people, and applying cold packs on and off to the site — with one or two layers of cloth between the sting site and cold packs — will take away most of the fire. BUT if you are allergic to the venom of bees, seek medical treatment immediately, and/ or use the bee-sting kit you should have with you at all times! If you’d like to have these vital pollinators as guests in your backyard, to help keep your garden healthy, send me an email (jimnaturalist@ gmail.com) and I’ll send you plans for a Norwegian artifi- cial carpenter bee nest. Singing for the nation... PHOTO BY GARY MILLER Contestants auditioned to sing the National Anthem for Sisters rodeo. Peggy Tehan is stepping back from a decades-long role. GOT DENTS? 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