While observing the bees one morning in my mom’s country garden, I noticed that the carpenter bees weren’t bothering to enter the flowers the way their cousins the bumblebees and sweat bees were. Instead, the carpenter bees would land on a flower and then crawl over it to get to the base of the corolla. There, they’d cut a little hole and get the nectar directly, the little cheaters.
This carpenter bee is collecting nectar through a hole it created from outside the flower.
I’d never seen this nectar-robbing behavior before, and I find it fascinating. The flowers were, I believe, Mexican Petunias (note that these are Category 1 invasives in Florida), and the tubes were apparently too narrow for the carpenter bees, although the big ol’ bumblebees certainly didn’t seem to mind squeezing their way in there. But not being able to fit in the flower’s tube wasn’t going to stop the carpenter bees!
In some ways, it’s pretty clever, but this bypassing of traditional nectar-gathering methods could mean that some plant species might not get properly pollinated, and seed production would therefore be limited. But since Mexican Petunia is one of those plants that spreads like crazy, I’ll assume that the carpenter bees aren’t doing much damage in my parents’ garden. In fact, given that my stepdad is getting rather tired of controlling the aggressive spread of the tall Ruellia flowers, I’m sure he’s likely to be thankful for the carpenter bees’ help in reducing seed production of these particular plants.
Of course, the sweat bees are very likely doing THEIR pollinating job quite satisfactorily!
Meredith O’Reilly gardens for wildlife in Austin, Texas, and writes about her garden adventures at Great Stems.
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I’ve seen little gray hairstreak butterflies use the holes that carpenter bees have made at the base of bat-faced cuphea flowers to get nectar.
Cool. I have never seen a butterfly doing this. Good observation Elizabeth!
Meredith how wonderful to see your post…I have been absent from reading blogs this summer and miss yours. How interesting that the carpenter bees are doing this…I love watching the pollinators and learn so much from you…hope you are having a grand summer…
Donna@Gardens Eye View recently posted..Weeds to Wildflowers
Meredith, yes it is Mexican petunia.
They do it on my blueberry bushes as well! I find neat little holes drilled at the base of each flower.
I still get blueberries, though, so it works out.
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My Carpenter Bees do that on my Phlox, then other little insects go and feed at the hole they made.
Carole Sevilla Brown recently posted..Ecosystem Gardening The Journey
I noticed this on the native blueberries, native petunias, and trumpet creeper.
I witnessed this on my aquilegia this spring. Oddly, the bee would consistently visit four out of the five spurs, then move on to the next flower. It made me wonder whether they were used to feeding from four-pronged flowers, or just couldn’t count well.
I never saw anything else feeding from the slits, and it certainly didn’t prevent the aquilegia from setting seeds!
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