Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Native Hawai'ian Bees Forage Only Native Hawai'ian Plants

Mahalo...Jan Roberson,

...she got the County to fund her Native Hawai'ian planting of the entire Ho'okipa Beach  Park...This was the 1st time I ever saw a bee at the beach here.



Native and Adventive Bees of the Hawaiian Islands
The bees of the Hawaiian Islands include the native bees of the genus Hylaeus(Nesoprosopis)
as well as over a dozen other species that arrived after the Islands were colonized by humans. Here we briefly review the bee fauna as an aid to identifying the native species.

Pollen foraging behaviour of solitary Hawaiian bees revealed through molecular pollen analysis 
At high elevations in Haleakala, pollen was available from more than 12 species of flowering plants, but Hawaiian silversword (Argyroxiphium sandwicense subsp. macrocephalum) comprised 86% of all pollen samples removed from bee crops. At lower elevations in both parks, we only detected pukiawe (Leptecophylla (Styphelia) tameiameiae) pollen in Hylaeus crops despite the presence of other plant species in flower during our study.
 Furthermore, 100% of Hylaeus crops from which we successfully identified pollen contained native plant pollen. 


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