Wildflowers in the prairie

There are many new flowers in the prairie now. Yellow flowers include various kinds of goldenrods, sunflowers and coneflowers. Blue and purple flowers include anise hyssop, burdock, prairie onion, blazing star, lobelia and various kinds of thistles. The picture below is the valley below the chalet taken from the other end of the valley. It is hard to believe that 3 years ago this was a golf course fairway.

Here are pictures of two types of goldenrod. Honeybees love goldenrod as well as many butterflies. Goldenrod has a bad reputation as being bad for people with allergies. Pollen in the air is what irritates lungs and nasal cavities of people. Some weather apps warn of high pollen levels in the air. Many grasses, trees, plants and flowers are wind pollinated meaning pollen has to go from plant to plant by lots of pollen sent into the air. Many trees and most flowers are pollinated by a pollinator like bees and butterflies transferring it from one plant to another on their legs or other parts of their body. Goldenrod is pollinated by mainly bees and almost none of its pollen gets into the air to bother our respiratory systems. It is usually ragweed that sends its pollen into the air at the same time as goldenrod is blooming that causes allergies this time of year.

There are lots of sunflower type flowers that are blooming now. There are so many different kinds of them but you can see them all over certain parts of the prairie. This is evident if you look at the two pictures of the general prairie above. The basic idea of what a sunflower is would be that it has a brown, gray or orange central part that is somewhat rough and has studded areas. This is where the seeds develop and are wonderful to eat. This seed growing area can be huge (6 inches plus in many varieties in peoples' gardens). On our recent trip to Montana we drove by huge fields of commercially grown sunflowers in South Dakota. I'm not sure if these were grown for the seeds or the oil. The other part of the flower that gives sunflowers its name are the yellow petals that radiate out from all sides of the central area like beams of sunlight.

The pink to purple to blue flowers are out there and blooming for their beauty and to the delight of the pollinators. Rough blazing star is just starting to bloom. It will bloom for quite a while now and is one of the flowers from which monarch butterflies get much of their energy for their flight down to Mexico. The tree across the road from the fort site is a gathering spot for them to fly down together. There are many blazing stars below this tree. Soon you will see many monarchs hanging from this tree in the evening for the night. I don’t have a good picture from this year so the one below is from last year a couple weeks later than this. It is not uncommon to see 2 monarchs on the same plant like this. I have seen 4 or more. The light in this picture makes the flowers look blue but they are more of a pink color.

Bumblebees and honeybees at Fort Ridgely

I have already included two pictures of bumblebees above on the flowers anise hyssop and lobelia. The pictures show 2 different species of bumblebees. There are 23 species of bumblebees in Minnesota and 45 known to exist in North America. They vary greatly in size, color and even shape. One species called the rusty patched bumblebee was recently named Minnesota’s state bee. It is an endangered and protected species and Minnesota is one of the few places on the planet where it still can be found.

For more information: https://www.fws.gov/midwest/endangered/insects/rpbb/factsheetrpbb.html

There is only one species of honeybee in the USA. It is called the western honey bee and was brought over from Europe as no native bee here produces enough honey to be harvested. There are only a few other species around the world that have colonies big enough to be put in hives like the ones pictured below and are so conscientious to produce more than they need to survive the winter so we can harvest the extra. I am also including a close-up picture of a honeybee. Notice the pollen pocket on its leg.

Pollination of our plants is integral to the process of making honey and only a little bit understood by most people even though many of the things we eat and enjoy the beauty of are dependent on this process. Bees are attracted to the flowers in our gardens, our crops and especially out in the wild by nectar the flowers produce partly to attract them. Honey bees make honey from this nectar which is different tasting and looking, dependent on from which flower they collect the nectar. Clover honey is what most of us are familiar with as clover is one of the most common flowers . Buckwheat honey is a dark brown full flavored honey and there are lots of variations in between.

Pollination is what the plant gets out of the removal of their nectar.. Pollen is the male "sperm" that the female part of the plant needs to be transferred to it and preferably to other plants of their type rather than the one from which the bee gets the nectar. Though corn is wind pollinated and does not need a pollinator, it is easy to see the male tassel at the top of the plant and its pollen has to get down to the silk on the corn and it is transferred through the silk so each kernel can be fertilized and form. All plants have their own unique male and female parts. Some types of bees like honey and bumble bees collect pollen too for making their nest and a protein source for themselves and the larva and bees in the hive. You can see the pollen pockets that they have on their legs that they put the pollen in to transfer it to the hive. See honey bee picture and the bumblebee below (another species). On the bumblebee you can clearly see both the yellow pollen pocket and the white grains of pollen on its leg and body hair. The actual fertilization of female parts of flowers so they can produce the fruit, seeds and nuts is from pollen that gets attached to hairs on the bee's body or spills out of the pollen pockets. Many flowers' female parts are strategically placed so the pollen will easily transfer from the bee's body when they enter the flower.

Another little known fact about pollination is that when a huge crop of almonds and a number of other crops need to get pollinated there are not enough local pollinators to do the job. The grower pays lots of money to bee owners from across the country to transport their hives to California or wherever needed to pollinate their trees. In greenhouses they need to have bees inside to pollinate the plants. Bushel Boy tomatoes in Owatonna has to have bumblebees for their greenhouse, especially in the winter. It turns out that honey bees cannot get the tomato flowers to release their pollen. Bumblebee buzz is just the right frequency to get the tomato flower to release pollen. It is called buzz pollination and honey bees have too high a frequency to do this. According to the book Bumblebees of North America, "Each year more than a million commercially produced bumblebee colonies are sold around the world. Most of these colonies are used in greenhouses, where their pollination services is worth more than$10 billion annually. The total value of crop pollination by wild bumble bees is far higher than this."