April 19 Cherry Bee

I led a tour this afternoon at the Arboretum celebrating Earth Day and after a casual trip to the pond and wetlands, we found our way to Longenecker Gardens and soaked up the beauty of the many flowering trees. A small group of sargent cherries was electric with these pink flowers and yellow-tipped stamens. A closer look and a whiff of cherry brought us face to face with a variety of pollinators, including the good old common eastern bumbler (Bombus impatiens). Like other Bees and Wasps, only the queen of a colony will live through the winter to develop a new nest the next spring. This queen will likely nest in an old ground burrow or a cavity in wood, and will occasionally store extra regurgitated nectar in wax cups in their nests as a food security measure against bad weather. You can just make out the telltale black spot in the middle of the bee's back. Sargent cherry trees (Prunus sargentii) are non-native, imported from East Asia to be a specimen in the Arboretum's tree collection. That fact didn't appear to bother bees and beetles today, who were scrambling over the flowers to feed on their nectar. The last thing we saw on our walk was a circle of magnolias in full bloom, displaying pinks and whites and even yellow.