Conophytums and bees

[iann]

Conophytum meyeri, with bee.

Conophytum mirabile, with smaller bee. Or hoverfly?

Conophtum longum, but I missed the bee!

[curtuk]

Lovely plants!
I think it's a hoverfly on the C. meyeri, probably the Common Drone Fly (Eristalis tenax).

[ChrisR]

I think the meyeri is really a small form of bilobum.

[Acid John]

Both are Hoverflys.

[FredG]

Both are Hoverflys.

[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!

[FredG]

My Delospermas are a magnet for hoverflies. The bees prefer Linaria, Anemone and Antirrhinum. Both enjoyed the sunflowers when they were producing.

[BrianMc]

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