Wonderful Brian, the study of nature is infinitely rewarding because the mysteries are so intricate, and also seemingly infinite! You've provided me with some inspiration for my morning, thanks! This is a very basic question, but if the bee feeds its young with pollen, but the flower is tricking the bee into sipping nectar from the stami…
Wonderful Brian, the study of nature is infinitely rewarding because the mysteries are so intricate, and also seemingly infinite! You've provided me with some inspiration for my morning, thanks! This is a very basic question, but if the bee feeds its young with pollen, but the flower is tricking the bee into sipping nectar from the staminodes and depositing the pollen on the bee's abdomen, how does the bee then provide the pollen to it's young. Does it suddenly discover that it mysteriously accumulated pollen on its belly? Did it consciously accumulate pollen on its belly? Or did it purposefully collect pollen from the anther, store it in its pollen pockets, then move on to the staminodes?
Great questions, Steve. I'm no expert on Andrena bees -- and I might enhance this reply tomorrow. But, basically, the females gather pollen and store it on specialized hairs on their hind legs. They then formed it into a "loaf" or pellet on which she lays an egg and leaves it in a chamber of her burrow. The eggs hatches and feeds and grows (not in the presence of the female). Males don't gather pollen like that. (I've got photos of females loaded with pollen -- the example in my post didn't really show it.) Also, it appears that there is nectar at the base of the staminodes (although I'm not entirely certain about that). So, basically, females actively gather pollen for their larvae to grown upon, but in the process they also get dusted with pollen on the underside of their abdomen or thorax, which they carry to stigmas of other flowers. Hope that helps!
Thanks for that Brian! I guess the question of pollen gathering sparked my interest in this particular bee-flower relationship as there is only one anther presented at a time, which is deceptively (from the perspective of the bee) positioned to strike its abdomen as it goes to the staminodes. I suspected that the trap set by these particular flowers was too perfect to allow the bee to collect pollen for itself. But, perhaps the bee collects its pollen from the single anther first, then moves on to the staminode, and there is still enough pollen left on the anther to then be incidentally collected beneath the abdomen, and from there pollinate another flower! I guess that's why flowers produce an absolute overkill of pollen grains? As it only takes one pollen grain to fertilise an ova? Thanks again.
Wonderful Brian, the study of nature is infinitely rewarding because the mysteries are so intricate, and also seemingly infinite! You've provided me with some inspiration for my morning, thanks! This is a very basic question, but if the bee feeds its young with pollen, but the flower is tricking the bee into sipping nectar from the staminodes and depositing the pollen on the bee's abdomen, how does the bee then provide the pollen to it's young. Does it suddenly discover that it mysteriously accumulated pollen on its belly? Did it consciously accumulate pollen on its belly? Or did it purposefully collect pollen from the anther, store it in its pollen pockets, then move on to the staminodes?
Great questions, Steve. I'm no expert on Andrena bees -- and I might enhance this reply tomorrow. But, basically, the females gather pollen and store it on specialized hairs on their hind legs. They then formed it into a "loaf" or pellet on which she lays an egg and leaves it in a chamber of her burrow. The eggs hatches and feeds and grows (not in the presence of the female). Males don't gather pollen like that. (I've got photos of females loaded with pollen -- the example in my post didn't really show it.) Also, it appears that there is nectar at the base of the staminodes (although I'm not entirely certain about that). So, basically, females actively gather pollen for their larvae to grown upon, but in the process they also get dusted with pollen on the underside of their abdomen or thorax, which they carry to stigmas of other flowers. Hope that helps!
Thanks for that Brian! I guess the question of pollen gathering sparked my interest in this particular bee-flower relationship as there is only one anther presented at a time, which is deceptively (from the perspective of the bee) positioned to strike its abdomen as it goes to the staminodes. I suspected that the trap set by these particular flowers was too perfect to allow the bee to collect pollen for itself. But, perhaps the bee collects its pollen from the single anther first, then moves on to the staminode, and there is still enough pollen left on the anther to then be incidentally collected beneath the abdomen, and from there pollinate another flower! I guess that's why flowers produce an absolute overkill of pollen grains? As it only takes one pollen grain to fertilise an ova? Thanks again.
Plus, I suspect those Andrea also get pollen from other flowers, perhaps Solidago species.