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.
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Eyebrows
looking
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PHOTO BY SUE ANDERSON
The carpenter bee of the Great Sandy Desert.
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