Pondering Our Pollinators: The Brown-Winged Striped Sweat Bee (Agapostemon splendens)

How many insect pollinators can you think of? Me, I used to of butterflies, bees, moths, and wasps, but there was no real understanding of just how diverse insect pollinators were, or that there were native and imported pollinators. A lot of attention gets paid to non-native pollinators, like the European honeybee, and much less to most of our natives. Sure, some native insects do get mad love. I'm looking at you, monarch butterfly. That doesn't mean that other pollinators don't deserve some love, too. 

The idea here is that this will be a recurring series. I started getting curious about native bees and other pollinators a few years ago, and joining the Florida Native Plant Society has only fueled that. There are so many and they're all so cool! Anyway, I don't want this series to be a super scientific dive into the different species and subspecies (I don't have the background for that, anyway). Instead, I want to share curiosity-driven posts as I learn more about the insects we share the world with and depend on in so very many ways.

Agapostemon splendens

So, for the kickoff post, we're going to look at sweat bees, specifically the brown-winged, striped sweat bee (Agapostemon splendens). It's one of more than 60 sweat bee species native to Florida! 

I was lucky enough to get a picture of both a male and a female (not on the same day). The first pick below is the female as she enters her burrow. She has a black and green-striped abdomen. The pic under that is the male with a white and black striped abdomen as he gathers pollen from a sunchoke flower, which makes sense since Asteraceae (daisy and aster relatives) are some of the bee's favorites.

While many sweat bees are attracted to human sweat (for the salt and proteins), Agapostemon splendens is one of the few that isn't. They nest in the ground in communal groups. The nests share a common entrance, but inside, each female bee has a chamber where she raises her young. A guard bee prevents predators from entering, blocking the entrance with its head. They're social and work together, even though they have solitary burrows (many natives are fully solitary and don't live in a community).

Bees like these are one reason to leave some bare patches of soil in your yard. Other bees like to nest in the hollows left by decaying piths in flower stems, but we'll get to those later :)

So, why are these tiny, shiny bees important? Like other natives, they're responsible for pollinating a ton of plants, including commercial crops. Sunflowers (aster relatives), stone fruits (like plums and peaches), pome fruits (apples, pears, etc.), goldenrod, asters, mint and mint relatives, coreopsis, and tons of others. They're generalists, unlike some other natives that specialize in a particular type.

Want to learn more? UF has some good information, as does the Florida Wildflower Foundation.