Pollinators in Early Spring

by Bill Hoss With many trees and flowers blooming so early in 2012, I been wondering what bees, butterflies and flies people are seeing.  By middle to late March I was already seeing a Spicebush swallowtail, one of the smaller sulphurs, a Cabbage White and a couple Pearl crescents in…

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Predation Sensations

by Betty Struckhoff At our chapter’s monthly meeting on March 7, a guest who is very active in the retail nursery community raised an interesting question.  He noted that the hottest thing in the nursery business right now is planting for edibles.  He would like to see native landscaping become…

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Got Bees?

How many birds can you name (common names are fine)?  20? 50? 100? All 350 described in the Birds of Missouri? What about butterflies? There are 324 species of butterflies in Butterflies and Moths of Missouri, but of course that only scratches the surface of butterfly species and only names…

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Bumblebees

From: http://www.xerces.org/native-bees/ Bumblebees are the only bees native to the US that are truly social. They live in colonies, share the work, and have multiple, overlapping generations throughout the spring, summer, and fall. However, unlike the non-native, European honeybees, the bumble bee colony is seasonal. At the end of the…

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