{"id":7614,"date":"2013-05-04T09:13:58","date_gmt":"2013-05-04T16:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=7614"},"modified":"2013-05-04T23:04:45","modified_gmt":"2013-05-05T06:04:45","slug":"nectar-robbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=7614","title":{"rendered":"Nectar robbers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Flowers produce nectar for one reason: to entice insects to brush against their reproductive organs and, in doing so, to transfer pollen from one flower to the next. To accomplish this, flowers are structured such that the insect must pass the anthers and\u00a0stigma\u00a0to reach the nectary (where the nectar is produced). That is the contract: insects pay for the nectar by providing pollination.<\/p>\n<p>This system works for the benefit of both flowers and insects. It works, that is, until the coming of larcenists. These break-and-enter specialists bypass pollination and just steal the nectar. The only local nectar robbers I have spotted are wasps.<\/p>\n<p>Most bees and flies are either small enough or have long enough tongues to reach the nectar from the lips of a tubular flower and so rub against the flower&#8217;s reproductive organs. This <em>Bombus melanopygus<\/em>\u00a0is thrusting its tongue into the opening of a <em>Pieris japonica<\/em>. The bumble bee is living up to its contract with the flower.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-7617\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/bombusmelanopygus130428bs.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Not so, this paper wasp. It is about to rob the flower&#8212;to take nectar and give nothing in return. Wasps lack the long tongue needed to reach the nectary from the flower&#8217;s opening, but they do have powerful jaws. Their solution is to break and enter: to bite a hole through a petal. This <em>Polistes dominula<\/em> has just started to bite. Seen on another flower (below its head) is a older hole carved to reach the nectary.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-7615\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/polistesdominula130501as.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>An aerial yellowjacket (<i>Dolichovespula arenaria<\/i>) demonstrates the entering portion of break and enter: it sticks its jaws though the hole it created and takes the nectar, bypassing the flower&#8217;s reproductive organs.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-7616\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/aerialyellowjacket130428as.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Flowers produce nectar for one reason: to entice insects to brush against their reproductive organs and, in doing so, to transfer pollen from one flower to the next. To accomplish this, flowers are structured such that the insect must &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=7614\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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-7614","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\/7614","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=7614"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7642,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7614\/revisions\/7642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}