8/27/21 Goldenrods
They are hard to miss right now and one of the best bee flowers in the fall. Beloved by a number of specialist and generalist species, they are a great place to find rare cleptoparasites as well as common, relatively distinctive specialists. If you spend enough time looking at goldenrods, you will notice some have very few bees, while others are loaded. We still have a lot to learn about the exact needs of these bees. There are dozens of goldenrod species in the state and we know very little about the species specific preferences for any of these bees. Additionally, soil characteristics can play a big role in determining which bees are present at a site. In general, sandier sites will have high diversity, which means the best chance for finding interesting bees is often along rivers (either current or ancient).
As usual, images and descriptions for many of our goldenrod specialists can be found here:
https://val.vtecostudies.org/projects/vtbees/goldenrod/
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