Leijpark013

@leijpark013 · 21 May 2021

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Leijpark013
Listing by Thierry P. Dinjens · 23 hours ·
It's a coming and going of insects in the Leijpark. Some insects are happy with every flower they encounter, others come for one special plant. The latter group we call the specialists. Henk de Winter picked a specialist among the bees for you: the Ordinary sip bee. This bee has on the hind legs large wooly hairiness reminiscent of gullibles, hence its name. It is this small bee, at most nine millimeters tall, that is responsible for the pollination of the other. The reciprocal has large yellow flowers and likes to grow on the water. Once again, the only genus of flowers in our country that has so-called oil flowers. The flowers do not contain nectar, but at the base of the stamens an oily substance is released. This oil is collected by the Ordinary sip bee. Her legs have a spongy structure and, as it were, suck up the oil. To the hairy hind legs, pollen sticks, and in large quantities. The bees feed their young with a mixture of oil and pollen.
Now the reciprocal is a plant that prefers to grow in a wet environment. Near the Ley or at one of the ponds in the Leijpark we find the. Bees do not normally like wetness at all, with the exception of the common gulf bee. The other man is not only used as a pantry, but males sleep on it massively and if it is easy, then they mate there. Thus, both species are completely dependent on each other. That's beautiful, but also dangerous. If one of the species would disappear, then the other will go irrevocably.
Both species are so well matched that the first siblet bees creep out of their puppets, just at the moment when the others begin to bloom. But who now thinks that the Common Gobster Been just flies on yet again is wrong. They also have to eat and nectar they can only find on other plants. Far thistle, water mint, cat tail, all kinds of plants from both dry and wet environments are visited and the males even fly on exotic garden plants. But for the young (the breeding as it is so beautifully called) they really have to go to the other.
There are differences between males and females. The males have a yellow head, the females have a black. The Ordinary sip bee in the photo is very clearly a female. It is she who collects the pollen on her hind legs, which is also clearly seen in the photo.
In the Leijpark, the fate of the Ordinary sip bee depends to a large extent on the mowing policy. If there is mowing at the end of May, beginning of June this will be detrimental to the other people being mowed away and immediately the common gulf bee disappears. So we have to guard against that, because both species bring something extra to the Leijpark: a collaboration that is unprecedented. Hopefully we can enjoy both species for a long time..