Saturday, April 27. 1-2pm
Vista
Grande Library in Eldorado by Ken Bower, Ed.D.
The flowering plants (angiosperms) are the most diverse
group of land plants living today. They are distinguished from the gymnosperms
by having flowers, endosperm (food) within the seeds and the production of
fruits that contain the seeds.
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245-202 million years ago the ancestors of flowering plants
diverged from gymnosperms
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They became widespread around 100 million years ago
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Around 60 million years ago they replaced the conifers as the
dominant trees
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The water lily's origins go back more than 140 million years.
The flower is a modified stem tip, bearing structures that are
highly modified leaves. Pollination is the process by which pollen is transferred in the
reproduction of plants, thereby enabling fertilization and sexual reproduction.
Once the ovary is fertilized, the carpel and some surrounding tissues develop
into a fruit.
Pollinators in
New Mexico
Native New Mexican Bees
There are an estimated 500 bee species in New Mexico. According
to the New Mexico State University entomologist, T.D.A. Cockerell
in "The Bees of New Mexico”. There are 4,000 known native bee species in
the U.S. “Gardening for Native Bees” by Jessie Keith
Some native bees even appear to do a better job of pollinating
crops than honeybees. Researchers have found that blue orchard mason bees (Osmia
lignaria) are far more effective pollinators of cherry
orchards, resulting in over twice the yields of honeybee pollinated orchards. They
nest in wood and can be managed to pollinate have been used successfully on a
limited scale for pollination of almonds, apples, cherries, and plums.
Bumblebees are social insects which
form colonies with a single queen. Colonies are smaller than those of honeybees
often consisting of fewer than 50 individuals in a nest in underground holes.
Carpenter bees are solitary
bees that look similar to bumblebees, but their
abdomens are black, shiny, and hairless. They can be important pollinators of
open-faced flowers.
Leaf-cutting Bees – Megachilidae are important
pollinators of many wildflowers. They also pollinate fruits and vegetables and
are used as pollinators by commercial growers of blueberries, onions, carrots and alfalfa.
Sweat bees – Halictidae are
small bees which are usually dark-colored and often metallic in appearance.
The Honeybee
Honeybees evolved specifically due to mutualistic plant
relationship and are descended from wasps. The switch from insect prey to
pollen may have resulted from the consumption of prey insects which were flower
visitors and were partially covered with pollen when they were fed to the wasp
larvae.
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Bees evolved specifically due to mutualistic plant relationship
and are descended from wasps.
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The switch from insect prey to pollen may have resulted from the
consumption of prey insects which were flower visitors and were partially
covered with pollen when they were fed to the wasp larvae.
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The earliest insect cross-pollination was by insects such as
beetles, so the
syndrome of insect pollination was well established before bees
first appeared.
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Fossils of the true Apis (honeybee) type were first discovered in the
Lower Miocene (22 to 25 million years ago) in Western Germany.
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The true honeybees (genus apis)
have the most complex social behavior among bees. The European honeybee Apis mellifera, is the best known of all
insects.
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In the Santa Fe Area bees are kept in both Langstroth and top bar
hives. In both types of hives the bees cling to comb that they have produced. The
bees store honey & pollen in the comb as well as raise their young.
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One-third of what we eat wouldn’t be available to us without the
pollination of bees. List
of crops pollinated by bees.
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Many food crops depend entirely on bee pollination. Without bees
you would only be eating oatmeal & corn tortillas for breakfast.
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“If bees ever die out mankind will die out four years later”- Einstein
Flowers in My Garden That Most Interested My Bees
Wildflowers in Eldorado That Most Interested My Bees