{"id":10278,"date":"2014-04-18T16:47:24","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T23:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=10278"},"modified":"2014-05-03T15:41:43","modified_gmt":"2014-05-03T22:41:43","slug":"queens-and-mimic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=10278","title":{"rendered":"Queens and mimic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Bumble bees are back. The first to appear are the only ones to have survived the winter: the queens. They have the monumental task of feeding, establishing a nest, laying eggs and raising the first generation of workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The first bumble bee spotted\u00a0a couple of days ago was a <em>Bombus bifarius<\/em> feeding on the nectar of <em>Pieris japonica<\/em>.\u00a0<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-10282 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/bombusbifarius140416as.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The second to be spotted was a <em>Bombus centralis<\/em>.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-10281\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/bombuscentralis140416bs.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Now, something really interesting appeared, a hover fly (<i>Criorhina sp.<\/i>), a bumble bee mimic. Compare this fly with the <em>centralis<\/em> above, and the <em>bifarius<\/em>\u00a0below. Now, imagine that you are one of the many birds that favour dining on flies. Will you sample a defenceless tasty treat that looks as if it might actually be a rather lethal queen bee?<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-10280\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/hoverflyCriorhina140416as.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This is a matching side view of the <em>bifarius<\/em>. My\u00a0guess is that birds are not going to bother the hover fly.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-10279\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/bombusbifarius140416bs.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It is a jungle out there, and the <em>centralis<\/em>\u00a0calmly flies off to feed on a new flower.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-10283\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/bombuscentralis140416as.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Bumble bees are back. The first to appear are the only ones to have survived the winter: the queens. They have the monumental task of feeding, establishing a nest, laying eggs and raising the first generation of workers.\u00a0 The &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=10278\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10278"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10457,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10278\/revisions\/10457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}