Longhorn is a possibility.
“swatra”: Svastra is a genus of Long-horned bees. Only the males of this bee family have long antennae. The bee asked about appears to have normal-length antennae, so this is not a key ID feature in this case.
Ok that’s a very good idea. I will do that next time.
That’s hard to say with all the pollen everywhere. I will try get pictures in the morning when they begin foraging and maybe I can get some pics without so much pollen. Thank you for the photos too.
Inow think it is a species of andrenid bee. There are several that look like yours. I just saw a couple species in my yard.
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@nil
It can be difficult to get good pictures of many insects , because they are fast, don’t hold still very long.
I have found that catching them in Tupperware. Or netting , and placing in Tupperware , then putting in the refrigerator , or the freezer for just a few minutes, will slow them down enough for a good photo session , without lethal means .
Some can wake up surprisingly fast,
So a handy method to id some of the beneficials with out killing them.
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I couldn’t see any bees out today anywhere I looked. One solitary bumble bee, but none of the smaller bees. It was really windy again today, it seems they don’t like that.
I had forgotten about that trick! Thanks for the reminder.
see this post (however my picture does not show now???)
Stony Pit Virus
I found gigantic white grubs in my soil around only my apricot and peach tree. They turn out to be cetonia aurata. I think thats right. They are rose chafers. A large green beetle that looks metallic. They are big, white, fat and ugly. I left then on them on the top of my wall squirming. Hoping birds will get them.
Is my pear Keiffer Pear tree diseased, or is all of the fruit dropping because of cold damage?
The tree was loaded with flowers, and is self pollinating. Until recently, it looked as it would have a large harvest. However, the past several days all of the fruits are turning black and falling off. My area has experienced continual up and down temperature swings over the past month (at least one week worth of random 60s-80s during the day, with low 30s at night ).The bark appears to have a light gray speckle on it. I do not know if this has always been there or not. Some of the leaves are turning black also.
If it is cool and wet, it could be blossom blast (different from blossom blight).
Check out these odd round things doing in my aphids:
I think they are parisitoids?? I.e. the white things are bloated aphids filled with parasites. I haven’t seen this before. It is pretty clear they are doing in the aphids, you can see where there are missing swaths of aphids where these guys are.
Here is the more normal aphid predator, lots of them fortunately:
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I gotta say, the larvae stage of lady bugs don’t look anywhere like the full grown ladiy bugs.
How do those parasitoids show up? Is this the first year you notice them?
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I don’t know … it is the first time I have seen them. So they were either non-existent or minimal in number the last few years. I am looking at the aphids a lot as they usually need some sprays or they get totally out of control.
I am going to hold off spraying for a bit this year in the hope that my large ladybug population plus these parasitoids (?) will breed like crazy.
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It is frequently cool and wet. It does sound like blossom blast. It appears most of my fruit trees ( plums, peaches, nectarines, pears ( apples seem not impacted ) have dropped the majority, if not all, of their post blossom. Though, only the pear is black like this. One of the plums ( unknown Asian variety ) usually holds a lot of baby fruits for a month or so before dropping them all… but this year so many have fallen just a couple weeks after the petals fell prematurely from the first cold.
You need to plan to spray fungicide. If you area will be cool and wet in the spring, you will get it again.
I am wishy-washy between should I spray synthetics or not. I saw some lady bugs today and hate to kill them. I hate PC more.
I sprayed copper solution on all the trees prior to them blooming, but not after during or after. There is a 30+ ft tall ornamental pear next to this pear tree, and essentially in the middle of the yard. It has dropped all of its fruit ( not edible ) also. It sounds like this tree, if infected, will continue to spread this to other trees each season as it is too tall to spray.
Hey , those fuzzy balls eating your aphids are likely
Lacewing larvae
WithA debris ball on their back as camouflage good Eye. !
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Glad I missed that!
Lots of good guys doing good there, it’s real hard to get sightings or photos of the ladybug larvae in the third photo but they are usually there.
Hmm, that could be. They look like they are fixed though, the four on that leaf. I’ll try to get a better picture.