Growing With Science Blog

Did anyone have any ideas what the little bee was doing in the photos from two weeks ago?

Bees sometimes gather a number of different materials from leaves, including water, resin or sap. Because the plant is infested with lace bugs, which produce honeydew like aphids, I suspect this bee was licking honeydew from the brittlebush leaf. It is likely an example of an insect often considered to be a pest supplying the needs of an insect considered to be beneficial. Isn’t nature wonderfully complex?

Our family visited Colorado last week, where we saw some interesting insects as well as great views. For example, at the “beach” of Horsetooth reservoir near Fort Collins, we spotted these swallowtail butterflies.

If you look closely you can see that the butterflies are persistently probing the damp soil with their mouthparts (proboscis).

This behavior is called “puddling.” (See previous post for more about puddling).

With the more delicate black markings on their wings, these are two-tailed swallowtails, Papilio multicaudata, rather that tiger swallowtails. Ironically, the two-tailed swallowtail is the state butterfly of Arizona and I had to travel to Colorado to see one.

Firefly Forest has more information about two-tailed swallowtails.

Have you ever seen butterflies puddling? Do two-tailed swallowtails live in your area?

And yes, there are a few things to see in Colorado besides butterflies:

Our mystery seeds this week come in a red fruit.

The seeds within the fruit are covered with hairs.

Do you have any ideas what sort of plant these might grow into?

These seeds were collected in Colorado.

Edit:  The answer is now posted.