A DC Birding Blog: Carpenter Bee on Phlox


Photo Credit: Dendroica Cerulea

From A DC Birding Blog: "Yesterday evening I found this carpenter bee sitting on the flower head of a phlox plant. It was sitting almost perfectly still, with its head tucked down near the bases of the flowers. This behavior is something I have observed with both carpenter bees and the slightly smaller bumble bees. The most likely explanation I have read is that they are biting the bases of the flowers to sip the nectar without pollinating the plant. This makes sense since I am not sure even a carpenter bee could get its tongue far enough down a phlox flower. The odd thing, though was that it remained so still, without the visible twitching of antennae or other body parts that I normally see on nectaring insects. It stayed still even as I kept bumping my camera into the plant to get better angles for photos."

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Posted by WILDNEWJERSEY at 8/27/2011 6:00 AM
Categories: Invertebrates
Tags: carpenter bee bees Insects flowers bumble bees
 

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