Milkweed with a fly sipping nectar ummm, box elder beetles? bad bugs?....... NOPE... These are two different milkweed beetles... the small milkweed beetle is the bright red one and the large milkweed beetle is the paler one... I thought they were box elder bugs. but good or bad, I don't know for sure. calendula flowers reseed themselves every year Elderberry umbilifer.. hope to have elderberries this year. these are Merlin Blue Morn petunias and they really are more purple than this. when is a bee not a bee? when its not of course. this is a fly that mimics a bee. pink yarrow. umm, another beetle.. any ideas? and of course the worker bees beeing busy.
Carolyn,..nice and interesting selection of pictures,..those Beetles are very colorful,..and that mimic fly would fool me every time,..Wow look at all those worker bees i can almost hear the buzz.
Oh, what a delightful set of pics this time. You know C--I do not know if I would call a box elder beetle all bad. hahaha. Send me a box of 'em, cos I could use them in combating my box elder. Your bees are looking good there.
I had a double post but the real post disappeared... sorry. try again. The problem with the box elder beetle ( I think) is they are messy in great numbers, leaving stains wherever they congregate... inside the house is a mess. Thanks Frank... just a few things and I finally had a few minutes to just wander around and really look at the yard. thanks Philip... the fly wouldn't fool you for long once you got to see it up close. their legs hang down and are crossed as they fly and their heads are bigger their thorax's are larger... Thanks Sjoerd, the bees are as busy as can bee. I need to get in the hives and look them over but the temps are bit too high to wear a suit and veil... in the upper 80's. whew! sweat running in your eyes trying to see what is going on.
Great pictures...I pick those bugs off and get rid of them because they suck everything out of my blooms....they seem to really like my coreopsis blooms and a few others.Thank goodness I haven't spotted them yet. I have the one bug on the right of the leaf, second picture.
Beautiful pictures! I am going to have to look for some Blue Merlin seeds next year. They are stunning next to the marigold. The bugs, other than the bees, are thankfully not around my yard. The Box Elder bugs, wasps/hornets and grass hoppers are enough for me!
Oh, I know what you mean about being suited-up in the heat. I was just in the bees yesterday and perspired like mad. I was fooled because it wasn´t all that hot...but it was VERY humid, and that´s what got me. Sometimes I strip down and get in my pullover bee jacket, but usually I like wearing at least a T shirt. My shirt was wringing wet after the bee check. Yukkers. I had to go in though, I could not postpone even one day, as one of the colonies keeps building swarm cells, and they must be broken-out.