Alkali bee

Description

The alkali bee, Nomia melanderi, is a ground-nesting bee native to deserts and semi-arid desert basins of the western United States. It was described by Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell in 1906. While solitary, these bees nest near each other and can form extremely dense aggregations in areas with favorable conditions. This bee nests in salt-saturated, or alkaline, soil. Like some other bees such as Megachile rotundata, alkali bees are an effective pollinator of alfalfa. The bee uses a specialized technique of opening alfalfa flowers for pollination by applying pressure to snap open the keel of the flower. Because of this and the fact that they prefer pollen to nectar, fly in a wide range of conditions, and perform well regardless of how well the field is watered, alkali bees are preferred to honeybees for alfalfa pollination but have been increasingly supplanted by M. rotundata in recent years. Due to the unusual nesting habits of this bee, farmers have developed methods to accommodate them with salty mud-fields where they can burrow and lay their eggs. Farmers started doing this after realizing that plowing up natural flats like these decreased the yield of alfalfa dramatically. Juvenile hormone (JH) analog methoprene can serve as a possible limiting factor for alkali bees since female bees are more likely to reach reproductive maturity with JH. Alkali bees are also considered solitary bees because females have their individual nests and live alongside other female alkali bees. The alkali bee lives in arid climates, primarily desert basins in the western United States from central Washington to southern California and east to western Colorado. They prefer to nest in moist, silty soils that have good drainage, a salty surface, and don't have vegetative groundcover. The hydrology of the soils appears to be the controlling factor for where nests are made. As soil makeup affects water retention and capillary action, soils with some clay and sand but mostly silt are preferred. While solitary, alkali bees frequently nest in high densities. Females lay 1 to 2 eggs a day, and spend most of the day building the cell for the egg. Immediately after emergence a female begins to excavate the main burrow which usually entails digging for about 12 hours. The dirt is removed and using the mandibles and foretarsi, formed into pellets which are then deposited around the entrance to the burrow.