The Cellophane Bee predicting the arrival of spring.
Punxsutawney Phil might be the most famous rodent in the United States, or at least most famous gimmick a rodent has gotten to play over the last century plus. Groundhog Day, of course, celebrates that prospects of spring, and ceremonies - including that most famous one in Pennsylvania - pose the question that is on everyone’s mind in early February: Is Spring on just weeks away?
Of course, this Punxsutawney Phil, and the groundhogs have played him, don’t have the greatest accuracy - at least according to sites like Stormtrax Almanac, who have apparently taken the time to track such things - but that’s not entirely too surprising, even funny but suspect methodology aside.
For those in ground hog country, how many times have you seen a wild groundhog appear at the start of spring, let alone in advance of it? In my years on the homestead, I for one cannot report one such case. Actually, they don’t tend to appear till the ground has warmed some, as their underground lairs change temperature by 1 degree or less per day, even as the weather changes dramatically above them, due to the fact that soil temperatures shift very slowly, particularly at greater depths. But there is a creature we can turn to, even if it means we must be a bit more patient. Enter the Cellophane Bee..
The Cellophane Bee, from it’s early arrival to the reasons for it’s strange, unnatural sounding namesake, is an incredibly fascinating early season pollinator. It’s a valuable contributor to the pollination of some of our earlier bloomers, such as willows, service berries and dandelions (how ever one may feel about dandelions, they are invaluable to the cycle of calcium back up to the topsoil and also, by the way, a good food source).
This year’s first Pollinator of the Week Podcast will explore our Trumpet Angel of the Springtime, the Cellophane Bee. If you’d like to know more about this especially fascinating bee and why we might need a Cellophane Bee Day, keep an eye out this coming Friday, April 12th, for the free podcast. Happy springtime!
*Special thanks to Judy Gallagher for the great photograph!