Images

Black Chokeberry, Aronia melanocarpa. Consider the chokeberry....native and super full of antioxidants, also super attractive to native bees. Why don't you have any in your yard? Specimen and photo by Helen Lowe Metzman.

Oak Timberworm, Arrhenodes minutus, and an interesting mite on its mid femur, found at my moth light...likely attracted to the area due to the fresh red oak I am adding to the wood pile. Note the odd mite appears to be glued to the femur, it was still alive when the picture was taken, but apparently could not leave its host.

Common Milkweed - The primary foodplant in most of the range of the loved-by-all Monarch Butterfly . Also a weed, if you are a wheat farmer, and also something much less common in agricultural landscapes where they dominated in the past. Why? Because we figured out how to create food plants that cannot be killed by herbicides.

A gynandromorph is a bee that exhibits characteristics of both sexes. In the other two species (Lasioglossum and Bombus) the split was bilateral..one side male and the other, female. In this Anthidium oblongatum (an introduced species) almost the entire bee is female with the apparent exception of having a seventh abdominal segment and genitalia.

Antidium porterae....we recently uploaded somem pictures of the male and here, now, is the female. Collected in Hildalgo County, NM by an A. Melin. Note on the side shot the belly full of pollen attached to the pollen collecting hairs located there.

Anthidiums...in this case A. porterae....pretty spiffy very toothy (in the female) thick, direct flying marked in patterns of yellow over black. What is not to like. This one was collected in the boot heel of New Mexico by C.C. Nicholson. Pictures by Miss Elizabeth Garcia.

A small cute bee from Costa Rica. Collected by Tim Mcmahon on one of his several bee trips to that country. I can't scrounge up much about these hole nesters from Central and South America, but likely there are Brazilian papers out on the topic.

Male, this fun species nests in the walls of my adobe walled house where it aggregates in large numbers where the adobe is thickest. They create small dropping tunnels at that project out from wall ...function unknown.

Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Anthophora bomboides. Fuzzy . Faking the bumble bee look to fool birds into thinking they can sting like a bumble bee. Here is one from San Juan Island in Washington State. This species occurs throughout the continent....but....its look differs across that huge geographic range. Are they more than one species or not? Does anyone care? You?

Anthophora bomboides a large bumblebee looking male from Fossil Butte National Monument in Wyoming. This species occurs throughout the U.S. but shows enough variation on plumage and markings that one has to suspect that more than one species is involved (see the male from Maryland elsewhere in this photostream).

Maryland, Alleghany County

If you want a group of bees that generally present themselves well and look like bees not wasps choose the Digger Bee grouip. This male Anthophora californica was collected by Don Harvey in Hidalgo County, NM. Dryland area for sure and the distribution sits right in the dry areas of the West.

One of the few species in the genus Anthophora with a strong pollen preference. Its almost solely found on Boraginaceae, especially Alkanna and Anchusa.

One of the common species found in early spring in the olive groves and flower-rich phryganic habitats of Greece. Little is known about this species and some of its sibling species and there is a great deal of confusion regarding its identity. Collected by Jelle Devalez in the Aegean islands.

Eucerinoda gayi, Gay 's EucerineClaude Gay was a French entomologist who in the early 1800 's traveled to Chile to teach. However natural history was his passion and he spent most of his time in the country studying the plants, animals, and geology.

Female Caenonomada - Argentina....from the Laurence Packer lab....a bee that replaces at least some of the pollen/nectar component with plant oils oils. 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.

Osiris, Atlatl Godbee, Collected in ColombiaThe ancient Egyptian God Osiris was associated with both the afterlife and a greenish skin, and at least indirectly with Honey Bees.

Mydrosoma serratum, Serrated Evening Bee, collected in Mexico by Sheila Dumesh 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.

Ancyla asiatica, Asiatic Enigma Bee collected in Turkey Nine species of Enigma Bees occur from the Western portion of the Mediterranean to Central Asia. They are called Enigma bees because it has been so difficult to decide which other bees they are closely related to. The reason for this confusion lies in their tongues.