Leaf Cutter Bees and Cimate Change

Yesterday afternoon we ended up going grocery shopping.  The plan had been to go early Monday, but since Jim has a dentist appointment, and the left side of the garage is blocked by a construction trailer, that plan was off the table.  So we masked up and went to Fry's.  I'd say there was about 50% compliance with wearing masks.  People still do not comprehend 6 feet of separation, especially in the produce department.  If I get Covid-19, it probably happened in the squash area.  There was no toilet paper, and the meat supply was grim.  Produce was good, frozen food was good.

In the car I googled on "what's eating my bougainvillea?"  Turns out it's a leaf cutter bee.  I had no idea such a thing existed.  They are super pollinators, way better than honey bees.  Leaf cutters don't make honey and they don't live in hives, they are solitary bees.  They build nests for their offspring out of leaves either in the ground or rotten trees.  They're very picky about their leaves, they like hostas, roses, and lilacs; they also like bougainvilleas.  There is a good write up here.

Leafcutter bees don’t sting. Leafcutter bees don’t need mud like mason Bees, but Leafcutter bees do need leaves and temperature of 75-100 degrees F to pollinate. If you are in a warm climate and have sand instead of mud-Leafcutter bees are your ticket.

A single female Leafcutter Bee visits 100,000+ blossoms per day whereas a honey bee visits 50-1000. Leaf Cutter bees pollinate 100% more effectively and efficiently than honey bees.

You can buy their cocoons, they're good for summer vegetable pollination.

This is a leaf cutter carrying her piece of leaf back to her nest.

Notice the curved cuts out of the leaves and the flowers.  They're on the left about mid photo.  As we were standing there, I noticed two bees flying around the plant.  One landed on a flower, cut the piece out and flew across the street with it.  When they're carrying a bright pink load, they're easy to see.  The internet says they won't devastate the plant like looper caterpillars will, so we're going to leave her alone.  It's kind of cool watching her make the cut.  It's really fast and then she's gone.

Do you ever start a large project late in the day when you know full well you should just leave it?  We did that yesterday after the store.  The palm trees are making a lot of brown fronds, they're depressing to look at, so we got the chainsaw on a stick out at pruned them.  If you look, you can see that there is one green one in there.  I felt bad about that.  We cut the barbed branches off and boxed them.  Jim got one stuck in his arm (literally) and I got one in the leg.  They really hurt.  Next step was to start bagging the non-lethal fronds, but we left that for the next day.

The roof guys came today and were kind enough to throw the fronds in their trailer, so we're done!  Pretty cool.

There was sunset last night.  It's trying to rain, so there have been clouds.  So far all it has done is make it humid.

Propublica has written an article about how climate change will exacerbate the number of new viruses people will have to deal with.  Declining habitat and increased temperatures and going to make things bad for the humans.  Below is an excerpt.   It's a really good read, and may keep you up at night.

Scientists have not suggested that climate played any direct role in causing the current COVID-19 outbreak. Though the virus is believed to have originated with the horseshoe bat, part of a genus that’s been roaming the forests of the planet for 40 million years and thrives in the remote jungles of south China, even that remains uncertain.

Scientists have, however, been studying the coronaviruses of southern China for years and warning that swift climate and environmental change there — in both loss of biodiversity and encroachment by civilization — was going to help new viruses jump to people.

There are three ways climate influences emerging diseases. Roughly 60% of new pathogens come from animals — including those pressured by diversity loss — and roughly one-third of those can be directly attributed to changes in human land use, meaning deforestation, the introduction of farming, development or resource extraction in otherwise natural settings. Vector-borne diseases — those carried by insects like mosquitoes and ticks and transferred in the blood of infected people — are also on the rise as warming weather and erratic precipitation vastly expand the geographic regions vulnerable to contagion. Climate is even bringing old viruses back from the dead, thawing zombie contagions like the anthrax released from a frozen reindeer in 2016, which can come down from the arctic and haunt us from the past.

I have done something bad to my right arm.  The three possibilities are the rowing machine, the bike, or excessive computer use.  If it was rowing or biking, I would expect both arms to hurt.  Therefore, I blame the laptop.  I'm going to try to take a break from so much mousing and see if the swelling goes down.  It is really painful.  So if I don't fire off the daily missive, that's why.