The Beauty Of The Changing Seasons

[Radogast]

BTW - Magnificent photos you two !

 

[GrizzWald]

Been building a veggie patch..

After, I don't know how many wheelbarrows of dirt, I got there..

Now I have couple of holes to fill..

The daughter and I will get something to plant this weekend, along with some mulch..I'm looking forward to getting strawberries and raspberries growing. Back fence will get concrete reinforcing, for the tomato plants...

 

[GrizzWald]

Now for something different...950ad Chinese.. Never been valued. It's my hold onto dream that I'm rich..... deep down I think I know it'd only be 5 figures, lol...

 

[SmokesDaKush]

Canna, I'm not too bothered by them but I still wouldn't want them crawling on me. I have seen gold and transparent lady bug like things but never black like that, very shiny little guy. I'll try and keep my eye out for one this year. I also should go look over the grapes then and see if anything is there.

Love the shot with the critter eating, he wasn't even phased. Your Tiger's are gorgeous indeed! I can't remember whether it was a tiger or a burgundy one but we have two new lilies this year, one yet to open still, here's hoping for one like yours.

Mmm tomatoes.

 

[SmokesDaKush]

I wonder why they need those more visible tips:
Are they sexy to other dragons?
Do they help them achieve better spacing when flying in formation?
Are they anti-crash signals for stupid birds?

- I looked it up quick and it basically is for controlled gliding at higher speeds.

Pterostigma - Wikipedia

 

[Lady Cannafan]

Well, I might as well get in on the Bumble Bee party...not in any way as sharp as what has been posted here...

Gathering pollen...unknowingly it seems....

....because it went from the flower to a tree and tried desperately to shake that pollen off it's legs.

And here's the bug from the screen house on something a little better color to suit it:

Flowers are just as beautiful from the back...

This is not an illusion, or a trick. It is in midair.

If you look at the top closely you will see it's hanging by a spiders "thread".

 

[Radogast]

- I looked it up quick and it basically is for controlled gliding at higher speeds.

Pterostigma - Wikipedia

Lovely find. Pterostigma. They are like the vibration damping weights on my car's 6-speed shifter forks - cool !

I still think they are good for impact visibility AND sexy (I enjoy my illusions )

 

[Radogast]

. . .

This is not an illusion, or a trick. It is in midair.

If you look at the top closely you will see it's hanging by a spiders "thread".

Hanging by a thread... did you blow on it?

 

[SweetSue]

There are people out there trying to find out how much of the nectar to collect in order to get a high. LOL

We cultivate flowers and smoke them to get high. I don't think we're in a position to call this odd behavior. LOL!!

Ahhhhh......... Good laugh.

 

[SmokesDaKush]

I wonder if they physically place the pollen there or is it a secretion of sorts? I'll have to look that up.

Since bug week will be coming to an end, a little diversity.

What do you suppose this rather big weird looking thing is?

I got myself a neon suit now.. He likes the Pineapple Sage as well.

Found this guy on the grapes, tons of grapes too!

A chocolate Dragonfly. If the two bred what would it look like!?

Have a great weekend everybody!

 

[Lady Cannafan]

Love that Moth Smokey!
And the chocolate Dragonfly is beautiful. I have a large one here that keeps chasing me around the pond area, it has neon green and blue colors. My attempts at photographs have not been successful so far.....

If you only found one rose bug on your grape vines, you are soooo lucky! I've got dozens of them and they are chewing the leaves to shreds. Between them and the daddy long legs, it's a busy place out there. LOL

Here's some info on how bees collect pollen and nectar. My Bumble wasn't trying to shake off the pollen, it was organizing it in a sense.

First Bumble Bees:

As it turns out, bumble bees have a very interesting system for storing pollen, which begins with pollen collection. Because they are extremely fuzzy animals, pollen sticks to them every time they visit flowers. It sticks to their antennae, their legs, their faces, their bodies. They become one giant pollen magnet.

One of the really neat things I learned about bumble bees (and apparently beetles and ants), is that they actually have a special structure just for cleaning their antennae. Located on their front legs is a special notch. The inside curve of this notch is lined with a fringe of hairs that work like a comb. Have you ever watched a beetle, ant or bee wash itself? It will draw its antennae through this notch, and the comb-like hairs brush off pollen and any other debris that might be there. Pretty nifty.

Meanwhile, the middle legs are also equipped with brush- (or comb-) like hairs. These are run over the body, scraping off the collected pollen. From here the pollen is transferred to the pollen presses located on the hind legs.

At this point we have to take a good look at those back legs. Just like us, the bee’s legs have a tibia, which is the lower leg (think of your calf). On bumble bees the tibia is flat, somewhat convex, shiny and surrounded by hairs, some of which are rather long and stiff. This forms what is called the pollen basket. Located at the lower end of the tibia (think of your ankle) is a comb-like structure, and on the metatarsus (think of your heel or foot) is the press. These two structures work together kind of like levers.

So, the pollen (which has been moistened with nectar to make it sticky) is transferred to the press and the bee manipulates the press and comb to press the pollen onto the bottom part of the flattened tibia. Each new batch of pollen is pressed onto the bottom of the basket, pushing the previous batches further up. When the basket is full, it will bulge with upwards of one million grains of pollen. The hairs that surround the tibia hold the pollen in place while the bee flies from place to place, either collecting more pollen, drinking nectar, or flying back home to stock the nest with this carefully gathered food, which is what her offspring will eat when they hatch.

Bee pollen is considered one of the all-time great foods. Of course, the information I found on the nutritional content of bee pollen is specifically for honey bee pollen, but bumble bee pollen is probably very similar. So, here are some statistics on honey bee pollen:

• It is a complete protein;
• It is the only known food to contain all 22 amino acids that the human body needs but cannot produce for itself;
• It contains more protein than any meat or fish;
• It takes a honey bee about an hour to collect one pellet (basketful) of pollen;
• A teaspoon of honey bee pollen contains about 1200 of these pellets.

(Honey bees, by the way, have crevices on the backs of their knees, and it is into these that the gathered pollen is stuffed.)

Honey Bees:

Pollen collection by honey bees
While we normally think of honey bees collecting nectar, an average-size colony may bring in 100 pounds of pollen in a season. Pollen is an essential part of the honey bee diet, providing a wide range of nutrients including protein, carbohydrates, lipids, vitamins, and minerals.

Although a tough outer coating protects the pollen from environmental stressors, honey bees have enzymes in their digestive tract that split the grains apart at a weak point. The interior is then digested and the empty husks are excreted. Most of the pollen is eaten by nurse bees. They use the nutrition absorbed from it to secrete royal jelly from their hypopharyngeal glands. The jelly is fed to young larvae, including workers, drones and queens. After about three days the jelly is mixed with bee bread—a mixture of whole pollen, honey, and enzymes—and fed to the workers and drones until they spin their cocoons. The queens receive a steady diet of royal jelly throughout their development.

Most bees collect just pollen or just nectar on any trip, but a few carry both at the same time. The pollen is stuffed into hairy receptacles on their hind legs called corbiculae. A single bee can carry about half her own body weight in pollen.

Once back at the hive, the workers stuff the pollen into an awaiting cell. Unlike nectar-carrying bees, pollen-carrying bees have to off-load it themselves. In addition to depositing the pellets from their sacks, they may also groom away any pollen that is stuck to their bodies. The pollen is stored in cells at the perimeter of the brood nest, forming a ring around it. During the brood rearing season, the pollen is stored for only a few days. During the winter it is stored for much longer.

Honey bees usually forage on only one kind of flower on any single trip. This is nature’s way of assuring that plants are cross-pollinated. So a bee going to blackberries, keeps going to blackberries until there are no more blackberry flowers, then she will switch to something else. Honey bees collect pollen even from plants that don’t provide nectar, such as corn. In corn-growing regions, pesticide-contaminated corn pollen is suspected of causing severe health problems within the hive.

 

[Lady Cannafan]

At last! After years of Archaeological swamp stomping, the famed lost Caecilian Medallion has been found!

This highly coveted treasure is said to have been kept guarded by the feared flesh eating frog, and the legend held true. He uses sticks to clean his teeth after devouring anything that tries to steal the medallion. Just try to take it away from this guy!

I found this dude under my paddle boat when I went to clean it out for a trip on the pond this morning. He looks rather Clint Eastwood-ish with that stick in the side of his mouth...like a chewed smoke. LOL

 

[Lady Cannafan]

My trip on the pond this morning was a quest to capture a photo of the large and elusive green dragonfly.

The younger ones landed all over the boat with me, and even on me.

I like the natural habitat surrounding with this one.

As far as the green one, he was out there...he followed me around...but this is as close as I could get before the heat got to me. Another day....

 

[SweetSue]

Lovely chronicle of your jaunt Canna. Some day.

They bloomed!

 

[Lady Cannafan]

Oooh, what a luverly group of pretties Sue!

 

[Radogast]

What do you suppose this rather big weird looking thing is?

My first glance at this moth, I thought it was a parrot head coming through the wall

 

[Radogast]

some simple blue flowers - Sue says these are chicory

 

[SweetSue]

You reminded me. I caught these early one morning after a cooler than normal night, just as the sun was beginning to warm things up. You have to be super alert or very lucky to catch them this vivid shade of blue. I was lucky.

chicory, one of my heart-stopping favorites. We have fields of it along the train tracks.

 

[SmokesDaKush]

Lol at the chaser. I see them all over and usually stop and pause for a bit when there is a group "playing". It's as if they like to tease around here or something, they will wizz right by you and the more you hang around them, they just kinda adapt to you. We also get some big old mini rc helicopter looking ones (your green one might be) but, they always seem to fly at a higher altitude then the others, same with the big butterflies for some reason.

I saw two of them on the grapes but one must have panicked and jumped off because all I heard was it hitting leaves on the way down. Some leaves have a little chewing damage but not bad at all.

Very neat with the bees, I couldn't resist and did quickly google it after. Thank you for adding it though. It seems like at any given time we have 100's if not 1000's of bees around. They get so busy at times you can actually hear the hum a little bit away. It makes sense then though because they are working a large plot of the same.

Makes me feel better about planting all these flowers then, they'll get no pesticides here and they are welcome any time. I was actually discussing taking up bee keeping with the wifey this year for next year, all the garden benefits plus fresh honeycombs. It would be fun to learn I suppose. I might not even need to buy the bees, they may just move in provided I make them a nice home.

I wasn't sure if I would be able to get on today so, I guess I have one more bug day! Apparently love was in the air!

And in respect to those bees, They gave me true potato seeds for next year! Supposed to be about 300 seeds in each pod and I have quite a few pods, interestingly though they say each pod will produce slight variations of potatoes. It's kinda cool to think I could grow some potatoes next year that nobody has. I was going to try and get you guys a third time with another whatizit but nah.

 

[Lady Cannafan]

Well, maybe these will go over better than flesh eating frog tales....

I'm going to close out bug week with some final shots. Not saying we can't post pics of bugs, just that it's not the featured item any more.

He came back to visit with me. Such a friendly guy.

I wondered why these thistles always have a perfect webbing around them. Look closely, there's a spider under there:

I think he fell asleep in the rose, maybe had some "special" nectar?

Just a bug..

A moth on the grape leaves. I have several moth colonies flying around, but they won't sit still!

And this spider got peeved at me:

And last one, I said I wasn't going to do spiders. This one had a surprise for me. I had never seen a fuzzy spider before, but as I enlarged the picture it turns out the "fuzz" wasn't fuzz at all. It's her babies. Arrrrggg! I still shiver from it. Not real clear, but you get the idea.

I will have some pretties tomorrow. The photo upload time is slower than slow for me today.