What's Up, Cuz? Honey bees and ants belong to the same order,
Hymenoptera, and occasionally you see them together. Such was
the case today in the Storer Garden, UC Davis Aboretum, as the
closely related honey bees and ants foraged in the red-hot poker
(Kniphofia galpinii or "Christmas cheer"). These ants? Argentine
ants (Linepithema humile). "The Argentine ant is a non-native
and a notorious pest," says UC Davis ant specialist Phil Ward,
professor of entomology. The honey bee (Apis mellifera) is also
a non-native (it came over with the European colonists in the
1600s), but oh, what a non-native. We're so accustomed to it
being a beneficial insect that we consider it a native.
Hymenoptera ("membrane wing") originated in the Triassic period,
a geologic period that existed some 251 to 199 million years
ago. And today in a tiny thimble of time, they shared a red hot
poker. Honey Bee and an Ant Nectaring on Lavender