ENT532 Fall 2024: Carpenter bees at the Penn State Arboretum

On the first day of the Insect Diversity class, we walked to the Penn State Arboretum to observe insects in their natural state. I chose to spend my time watching some large carpenter bees near the bee hotels. I was particularly focused on a plant from the Asteraceae family, the Purple Dome flower (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae). It was crawling with carpenter bees. The plant had bundles of flowers all across it, and the bees would land on a bundle and go through each individual flower, moving aside flowers with their legs to inspect the next one. They appeared to be checking the base of each flower, as I assumed they were looking for holes used for nectar robbing. A couple of honeybees were also visiting these flowers; however, instead of searching for holes, they were small enough to actually go inside the flowers to forage. I also noticed that if one carpenter bee had just checked a bundle of flowers and flew off, another carpenter bee that approached the same bundle would instantly reject it and choose another one. She likely sensed that a conspecific had previously been there and had drained all those flowers already.

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Work Title ENT532 Fall 2024: Carpenter bees at the Penn State Arboretum
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Open Access
Creators
  1. Marie Muniz
License CC BY 4.0 (Attribution)
Work Type Image
Publication Date August 27, 2024
DOI doi:10.26207/sk0v-t990
Deposited September 12, 2024

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    • On the first day of the Insect Diversity class, we walked to the Penn State Arboretum to observe insects in their natural state. I chose to spend my time watching some large carpenter bees near the bee hotels. I was particularly focused on a plant from the Asteraceae family, the Purple Dome flower (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae). It was crawling with carpenter bees. The plant had bundles of flowers all across it, and the bees would land on a bundle and go through each individual flower, moving aside flowers with their legs to inspect the next one. They appeared to be checking the base of each flower, as I assumed they were looking for holes used for nectar robbing. A couple of honeybees were also visiting these flowers; however, instead of searching for holes, they were small enough to actually go inside the flowers to forage. I also noticed that if one carpenter bee had just checked a bundle of flowers and flew off, another carpenter bee that approached the same bundle would instantly reject it and choose another one. She likely sensed that a conspecific had previously been there and had drained all those flowers already.
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    • 2024-08-27
  • Added Creator Marie Muniz
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    • https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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    Work Title
    • Carpenter bees at the Penn State Arboretum
    • ENT532 Fall 2024: Carpenter bees at the Penn State Arboretum