Images

Two VERY SMALL spiders. Sadly I know little about spiders so can't tell you the species / group other a number that it is not. This Spider was only about 4mm. Captured outside of my lab in Beltsville, MD. Once I started looking I realized...there are billions of such spiders (tiny ones that is) in an average field.

Spider, Prince George's County, Experimental shot in a cuvette in hand sanitizer, this is the underside of the previous specimen...but Ben was able to eliminate more bubbles by carefully pouring the handsanitizer, will be working on lighting too

Beautiful, but scary. This is the Spotted Lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula). An impressive 2 inch exotic Fulgorid type thing from China and Southeast asia, it is a bark sucker and can do tremendous damage to smooth barked woody plants.

a new species record for Maryland collected by Richard Orr in the Catoctin Mountains. We will be looking into it over the next few weeks.

Experiment: This specimen has previously been photographed and uploaded to our account. The difference is that I have cleaned the specimen by rehydrating it overnight floating on foam in a tupper ware container of water and then vigorously washing it in hot soapy water by dunking the specimen on the pin into another plastic container and shaking.

Tetragona species, Biting Stingless Bee, specimen collected by German Perilla in PeruStingless bees are just that, they cannot sting, their sting mechanism was reduced to non-functionality many tens of millions of years ago.

Tetragona species, Biting Stingless Bee, specimen collected by German Perilla in PeruStingless bees are just that, they cannot sting, their sting mechanism was reduced to non-functionality many tens of millions of years ago.

Another beautiful Stinkbug from South America...this time, Argentina. Insect taken from the Natural History collection of the Smithsonian. Photography Information: Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200.

Another set of pictures of a different specimen of Svastra duplocincta. Below is a repeat of the previous verbage for the species.While most people would not necessarily think about this very much (beer, for example, is thought about a lot more), many bees are specialists on Cacti.

Another set of pictures of a different specimen of Svastra duplocincta. Below is a repeat of the previous verbage for the species.While most people would not necessarily think about this very much (beer, for example, is thought about a lot more), many bees are specialists on Cacti.

Who doesn't like an orchid? This is green-fringed orchid, found at the edge of the USGS Bee Lab's grounds near some woods. Nice to see this uncommon species. Planathera lacera. Photo and specimen collected by Helen Lowe Metzman.

Polistes dominulus from the Dominican Republic

Who doesn't like the physique of the Paper wasp.

Here we present a series of pictures of Polistes wasp nests with lavae, pupae, eggs, and interlopers.

Damselfly in Hand Sanitizer, Beltsville, Maryland

Water Strider, Gerridae, Beltsville, Maryland, Suspended in Hand Sanitzer

Ah, such an interesting plant for bees. Pontedaria cordata....Pickerelweed. Lives out in fairly deep water, emerges in the spring...sends up a spike of blue flowers in mid-summer. This plant is very attractive to long-tongued bees which have to reach way down to get nectar and pollen.

Ant, The Winter Ant, Prenolepis imparis, aka False HoneyPot ant. This is the head of the male. Small, taken with 10X microscope objective on a 200mm Pentax. Found this past spring in a swarm by Jan Reese who noticed Cedar Waxwings munching on the males in St. Michael's Maryland. Another day in the life of Earth.

This little red bee was collected on spotted beebalm. It seems to be the only species of plant, with the possibility of some close relatives being involved, that this bee finds worthy of collecting pollen from. If you Google images of spotted beebalm you'll see that it is quite the complicated and rather ornate flowering plant.

One of the best bee plants...big, tall, and simply by being a tree, voluminous in pollen and nectar resources. Black Cherry. Prunus serotina. Specimen and plants by Helen Lowe Metzman.

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming