W We all know about the symbiotic relationship between milkweed and the wonderful Monarch butterflies, but there is a dark side to milkweed, especially for bees.
While photographing honey bees on a milkweed, one continued to buzz around one of the milkweed flowers, not really moving, looking like it was stuck. In fact, it WAS stuck and after capturing a few frames I was able to release it from the milkweed with my lens hood, and off it went on its merry way.
There are several images in this post, and you can see in some of them little yellow paddle-like things stuck on the bee’s feet. These are called milkweed pollinia (how a milkweed pollinates), and these sticky little paddles will cling to the bee’s feet when it comes into contact with them (other insects also experience this).
Usually the pollinia are pulled off of the plant when the bee pulls away and they stay on its feet, but sometimes there is no escape. In the case of other insects, sometimes when they pull away their feet and limbs stay behind! So if you see a dead bee on a milkweed, or feet and limbs of an insect, now you know what happened. Here are some in-depth articles if you’d like to learn more about this and milkweed in general.
https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=43378
https://www.natureinstitute.org/article/craig-holdrege/the-drama-of-milkweed-pollination
https://www.natureinstitute.org/article/craig-holdrege/the-story-of-an-organism-common-milkweed
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