Tiny visitors on tiny flowers

in insects •  7 years ago 

The little white flowers are Baby's Breath, a member of the Euphorbia family. The speckled insect is an Aedes Egypti mosquito, dreaded carrier of the Zika virus, Yellow fever, Chikugunya virus and other plagues.

aedes mosquito.jpg

Fortunately, Yellow Fever and Zika virus are not normally found in my country although these creatures certainly are and the worst part about them is that they are active during the day and hang around in the plants, waiting for something to bite. They are particularly plentiful around my house and while they don't pester me at night when I'm trying to sleep, they are a nuisance when I am tending to my garden. I killed about 4 while I was trying to take these pictures. I was trying to get shots of the tiny solitary bee on the flowers, but no luck. So I had to content myself with taking pictures of these menaces, in between slapping them around my ankles. I'm not sure where they are breeding, I get rid of standing water around the house any time I see mosquitoe larvae in the water

Here's a photo of the bee, who refused to pose on a flower or stay still long enough for me to take a decent macro shot. Solitary bees are plentiful in my garden and I even have one that has a nest inside the keyhole of the back door. I have no idea how bees bore into wood, they don't really seem to have the anatomy for it but many of the solitary bee species are wood borers
solitary bee2.jpg

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Beautiful pictures!
@nikv I have an idea for you! Make a hive, and you will have your natural honey! :-) :-)
Mosquitoes that bite are females.
Males feed on nectar.
The hungry female mosquito will postpone from 40 to 80 eggs.
The full female mosquito will postpone from 200 to 300 eggs!
We have folk remedies for burning after a mosquito bite:
Salt - Has anti-inflammatory and antiseptic properties. Make a slurry of sea salt with water and oil the affected area.
Toothpaste - to spread the bite, the itch will pass very quickly thanks to the menthol contained in the toothpaste.
I nou tried, but they say it helps.
If you try - share your opinion.

I put used teabags on the bites and it works to get rid of the itch

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yikes! anything for a great shot

That's so great that your garden is a home for all those solitary bees ; my neighborhood had a cluster of burrowing bees that I noticed recently had their homes filled in... So sad... Hopefully the bees don't cause damage though, I'm unclear on that but I don't think they're harmful

Mosquitos living by the home though, that's a little more annoying haha

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Very annoying. Some of the bigger bees can damage timber but I don't know about these, they usually stick to nesting in plant stalks

Very beautiful photos and insects. We will see many of them in the next weeks :) Great work!

Ohh, I think for the first time, I really see this wading white legs.
Here they are a real danger and made us sick of the Chikungunya, with pains that are no longer taken away.
They reproduce in clean water and in vases.
The little bees are beautiful.
Greetings @nikv.

Greeting to you. I didn't know that Chikungunya had spread to your country, it is of African origin. International travel is not always a good thing :(

This virus spread through several countries in South America.

That is bad

Eek, when I saw the word Zika it freaked me out. Glad the virus is not normally found in your country.

Oh my, the bee made a nest inside your back door keyhole!! Are they still there?

When last I looked, it was still flying in and out

🙀🙀 They don't come out attacking if you stick your key in there to open the door?

It is a solitary bee and they are stingless. I never lock that door, just bolt it from the inside. It didn't have a key, none of my collection fitted and I couldn't be bothered to take it off to the locksmith. You can't access my back door from anywhere around the house unless you climb over the roof so bolted from the inside is fine by me

Baby's breath is a fitting name to that flower.

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Walked out side after rain yesterday and was savaged.

Damn!

Yuck, I really hate mosquitoes, they are like little flying hypodermic needles.

These ones are particularly bad, I have a much bigger allergic reaction to their bites. I have learned that applying wet, used teabags kills the itch and I do that now. Before, the bites would continue itching for weeks and nothing else was effective