Item Type Article
Authors Crosswhite, C. D.
Publisher University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ)
Journal Desert Plants
Rights Copyright © Arizona Board of Regents. The University of Arizona.
Download date 24/09/2021 09:52:41
Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/552254 Honey Bees visiting flowers of Saguaro Cactus (Carnegiea gigantea). Honeybees and Desert Plants. Springtime in the trip, each corbicula can hold a bulging, conspicuous mound of desert, and the warm air is filled with not only the perfumes pollen, the color depending on the species of plant the bee from flowers of mallow and lupine, orange and lemon, saguaro visited. Commonly pollen colors range from white through and poppy, peach and plum, filaree and mesquite, almond and shades of cream, yellow, orange and red. Pollen is unloaded at apricot, but also with the mellifluous hum of myriad bee the hive, where it is prepared by nurse bees to feed larvae or wings. Honeybees move from flower to flower, harvesting the where it is stored for future use. Pollens vary in the amount of sugar- bearing nectar from each and becoming dusted with protein they contain, some being more nutritious than others. pollen as they wade through stamens to reach nectaries. Although we tend to associate honeybees with man's orchard Nectar is swallowed into a large, thin -walled honey sac or crop. and field crops, where blooms are concentrated in number and Back at the hive, honey is made from the regurgitated nectar kind, desert honeybees must rely on wild plants to a large which bees partially digest and concentrate. It is an important extent. The article beginning on page 81 gives considerable food for larval and adult bees. insight into the foraging activities of honeybees on a year - Honey has long been an important food for humans, as well, round basis in the Sonoran Desert, and on the plant species and was indeed the main source of dietary sweetening in the used to furnish the essential proteins bees obtain from pollen. centuries before sugar cane and sugar beets. The Greek root Often these wild plants are some of the best sources of nectar "meli - ", meaning "honey ", gives us "mellifluous" and "Melissa," for honey as well; honeys from Mesquite (Prosopis velutina), and gives the honeybee its specific name, Apis melli f era, the Catclaw (Acacia greggii)and Desert Buckwheat (Eriogonum honey -bearer. fasciculatum) are some of the finest -flavored to the human Carbohydrate -laden honey is only half the bee's diet. Of palate. equal importance is the pollen that dusts the foraging bee. In general, honeybees are effective pollinators not only of Humans relished the dash of sweetening that honey gave to an crop plants but of desert plants as well. There are exceptions, already complex diet, but bees, like other animals, must have a however, mostly based on specialized floral morphologies source of protein to grow. They obtain it from the pollen they which exclude honeybees from both nectar and pollen. An collect. And they can collect it in quantity, as the photo on the example of this category is Penstemon, the largest genus of cover shows. flowering plant endemic to North America. Tubular zygo- Bees are abundantly clothed with soft branched hairs that morphic corollas evolved due to selection pressure from co- look like little feathers under the microscope. Pollen grains evolving North American species of pollinators, excluding get caught among them. Often the true color of a bee can be Eurasian honeybees which man later introduced. obscured by the dense covering of pollen the hairs hold. To Another category of plants which honeybees do not effec- harvest the pollen from these specialized hairs, bees use the tively pollinate are those which are wind -pollinated, such as middle pair of legs, which are equipped with serrated edges Jojoba (Simmondsia chinensis). However, floral morphology called pollen combs. After it is combed from the hairs, the bee does not exclude the pollen from the bees, and they can packs comb -loads of pollen into the concave depressions, exploit the large amounts of pollen available. rimmed with bristle -like hairs, located on the hind legs. These are called corbiculae or pollen baskets. At the end of a foraging -C. D. Crosswhite