Non honey bees are essential insects to human life. They collect nectar and plant exudates that we consume as sustenance, produce wax products for our hives and prevent diseases from entering homes.
Recently, some bees have begun shifting away from eating pollen to include protein sources instead. This change has taken scientists by surprise as previously they believed these bees to be vegetarians.
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Bumble Bees
Bumble bees are omnivorous insects, meaning they consume both pollen and nectar as food sources. Queen bumble bees depend on pollen for its protein-rich benefits when producing eggs; nectar provides sugary calories needed by workers bumble bees to produce eggs.
Nectar is a sugary liquid produced by plants inside glands on flowers. Bumble bees use this nectar as fuel to digest their food and fly in search of new flowers to pollinate.
As spring arrives, bumble bees emerge from their winter hibernation to build nests, collect nectar and pollen for food sources, lay eggs and start their own colonies. All this activity requires considerable energy expenditure, nectar from springtime flowers must help sustain their survival and provide energy reserves to power these activities.
Bumble bees live in colonies like honey bees, with three castes consisting of a queen, female workers, and male drones. The queen lays eggs and takes care of her colony while workers search for flowers to gather pollen and nectar resources from.
Carpenter Bees
Carpenter bees tend to prefer nesting in untreated wood that hasn’t been painted, stained or preserved with preservatives; typically eaves, fascia boards, rafters and siding.
Female carpenter bees excavate a circular hole on the surface of wood that’s about the size of their bodies, then bore through it along its grain to create a tunnel through it.
Once she is through, the female builds several chambers to house her young. These brood chambers measure about one inch long. She supplies these brood chambers with “bee bread,” an amalgamation of pollen and nectar.
Once eggs have hatched, larvae feed on this food mass before regurgitating it back to their mother. When large enough, these hatchlings leave the nest.
Aphids
Aphids are pear-shaped insects with soft bodies that feed on plants such as ornamentals, vegetables and fruits. Their mouthparts feed off of leaves and stems underneath leaves or stems causing significant damage.
Aphids can inject a chemical toxin that causes leaves to curl and distort growth of plants. Furthermore, some aphids produce honeydew which attracts sooty mold fungi.
Many aphid species possess unique, specialized morphologies, including siphunculi (cornicles) with the capacity of exchanging defensive lipids and alarm pheromones; others have caudae on their abdominal termini to manage honeydew production.
Whiteflies
Whiteflies are sap-sucking insects that feed on plant sap, producing honeydew that causes leaves to stick together or develop black sooty mold, while acting as vectors for various plant viruses.
Adult whiteflies lay hundreds of eggs on the undersides of leaves in an irregular circular pattern; within five to ten days, these hatch into nymphs.
Nymphs feed by sucking up plant juices through leaf undersides before laying more eggs – this cycle repeats for several generations.
Whiteflies can do considerable damage to plants, even being fatal for some varieties. Early detection is key in controlling whitefly infestations successfully.
Other Insects
Many insects feed on plants such as flowers and fruits; others, like ants and wasps, hunt for sustenance to eat.
Some insects also consume other organisms such as bats and fish, serving an integral function in maintaining balance among nature’s resources. Insects play an essential part of nature’s food chain as a primary food source.
Insects can be classified according to their diets, including carnivorous (eats meat), herbivorous (eats plant material), coprophagous (eats other insects), hematophagous (eats blood), and omnivorous (eats both plants and animals). Some creatures, like mites, springtails, and cockroaches also feed off decayed matter such as mites.
