Hylaeus nelumbonis. Â The bee likes wetlands and... wetland plants, by implication, Â love this bee. Â American lotus (Nelumbo) and water lily were early on noted as hosting this species on its flowers. Â Side note. Â I wonder how Robertson (the guy who described the species and whose mission was to document floral use by bees) collected these bees - on at least water lilies, which lie on the surface of the water (Lotus has the good sense to project its flowers above the water). Â If you try to net a bee on a water lily, everything gets wet and essentially goes under water and you end up with nothing. I know this from first hand experience. Â When I was trying my hand I had to slowly glide up on a waterlily, wait for a bee to land and crawl inside the waterlily, then grab the whole head of the flower with my hand and throw the everytthing in a net to extract the bee (and not fall out of the canoe by reaching a bit too far). Â In any case, these bees can be found on a variety of flowers, but always in and around wetlands. Â It is unclear why this should be. What is it that keeps them next to wetlands if not that they need some of those flowers specifically? Â Maybe its the pollen of one of the plant groups that is required for its young but it will sip nectar and party with the males on a variety of other flowers. Â H. ornatus and H. schwarzii do pretty much the same thing (more to the east). Â A nice tidy research project that could save the world (because you never know what you will discover when you poke around Mother Nature). Â












