Spiderwort in Bloom

Spiderwort, seen in today’s photo, is in bloom now. This perennial native wildflower is a reliable source of pollen for honey bees. The plant blooms in the morning, with blooms usually closing by noon. Foraging bees learn this bloom period pattern and forage early in the day, collecting ample amounts of pollen, which they deposit in cells close to the brood. Pollen grains, a flowering plant’s male reproductive cells, are found on the anthers of flowers, which in spiderwort stand on stalks in the flower. When a honey bee visits a flower, pollen grains attach to the honey bee’s hairy body, and the bee then grooms the pollen into pollen baskets on her hind legs. Some pollen is inadvertently brushed off the bee onto the sticky stigma of the flower, part of its female reproductive system, pollinating the plant. This accidental pollination by the bee is the first stage in the reproduction of the plant, producing seed and fruit.

Honey bee colonies must forage ample amounts of pollen to support their brood, their developing offspring, which the colony’s nurse bees feed in the larval stage of development. Pollen contains protein, fats, vitamins, and minerals. When pollen is added to honey, a carbohydrate, honey bees have a complete diet, entirely derived from flowers. The pollen, mixed with honey and yeast and bacteria from the bee’s gut microbiome is known as “bee bread.” The yeast starts fermentation of the bee bread that serves as preservation. The fermentation also cracks the hard shell of pollen grains releasing the nutrients. Nurse bees consume the bee bread and produce brood food in glands in their bodies. Brood food is fed to the developing brood in its larval stage.

--Richard