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LinkedInPosts Tagged: penstemon
Welcome, Teddy Bear Bee
If you've never seen the "teddy bear bee," keep an eye out for it. A fuzzy golden bee with green eyes, it's the male Valley carpenter bee (Xylocopa varipuncta). Last Friday we saw it foraging in the half-acre Haagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis....
A male Valley carpenter bee (Xylocopa varipuncta)sips nectar from a foothill penstemon, (Penstemon heterophyllus) in the Haagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The male Valley carpenter bee twists to look at the photographer. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The male valley carpenter bee, aka "teddy bee," straddles a penstemon. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Nectar Guides: More Than Meets the (Human) Eye
Everyone can appreciate the beauty of flowers, but that's not to say flowers look nice just for us! We often get asked by Haven visitors how bees find their flower hosts. One way is through unique flower colors and shapes. Once bees are near a plant, flowers with intricate patterns can entice them...
I've Been Robbed!
Bees need flowers that correspond to their body size and tongue length in order to effectively access the nectary located at the flower base, so a well-designed bee garden includes plants that provide a variety of flower shapes and sizes. Small bees with short tongues, for example, need...
Native on Native
Native on native. That's when you get when you see a yellow-faced bumble bee (Bombus vosnesenskii) on a penstemon, also known as "beard's tongue." Both the bee and the flower are native to North America. Native Americans reportedly used the penstemon, formerly classified in the...
Yellow-faced bumble bee (Bombus vosnesenskii) crawls inside a penstemon "Evelyn." (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Just the feet of the yellow-faced bumble bee show. At right, another yellow-faced bumble bee heads off to a flower. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Yellow-faced bumble bee emerging from penstemon blossom. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
This One Rocks
It's not red but it definitely rocks.It rocks because it's drought-tolerant and it rocks when honey bees and bumble bees visit it.And it's pretty. The Penstemon x Mexicali "Red Rocks" is a white-throated cherry-pink flower.One look at it and you know it's a member of the snapdragon/foxglove family...
Honey Bee
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