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Conophytums and bees
Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2021 8:48 pm
by iann
Conophytum meyeri, with bee.
Conophytum mirabile, with smaller bee. Or hoverfly?
Conophtum longum, but I missed the bee!
Re: Conophytums and bees
Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2021 9:29 pm
by curtuk
Lovely plants!
I think it's a hoverfly on the C. meyeri, probably the Common Drone Fly (Eristalis tenax).
Re: Conophytums and bees
Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2021 10:45 pm
by ChrisR
I think the meyeri is really a small form of bilobum.
Re: Conophytums and bees
Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2021 11:02 pm
by Acid John
Both are Hoverflys.
Re: Conophytums and bees
Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2021 7:33 am
by FredG
Acid John wrote: ↑Mon Sep 27, 2021 11:02 pm
Both are Hoverflys.
Re: Conophytums and bees
Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2021 1:53 pm
by iann
There's a lot of hoverflies on the Conophytum flowers at the moment. Maybe not a lot of pollen about elsewhere.
The bilobum is almost an exact duplicate, you might say a clone, for another plant I have but no location data with it. Apparently it came from Shirley Brennan, although I have no recollection at all of that. That makes C. meyeri missing in action. The bilobes are all very confusing to me, sometimes seems like there is more variation within one species than between different ones. Even before looking at the hybrids!
Re: Conophytums and bees
Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2021 7:39 am
by FredG
My Delospermas are a magnet for hoverflies. The bees prefer Linaria, Anemone and Antirrhinum. Both enjoyed the sunflowers when they were producing.
Re: Conophytums and bees
Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2021 12:33 pm
by BrianMc
FredG wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 7:39 am
My Delospermas are a magnet for hoverflies. The bees prefer Linaria, Anemone and Antirrhinum. Both enjoyed the sunflowers when they were producing.
I noticed in my collection over a number of years that the Hoverflies seem only to be interested in the pollen of mesembryanthemum species. Bees tend not to bother with mesembryanthemum flowers preferring plants with easy accessible nectar like echeveria etc