Images

Specialist: Colletes latitarsis, a lover of ground cherry,Physalis, a weedy plant, but a flowering one, and a native one, with its own set of the species that appear to only gather pollen and perhaps nectar from its flowers. This plant though is not uncommon, and occurs in many of the gardens.

Hiding in plain site. Is this Cellophane Bee... Colletes latitarsis is a bee that only feeds its babies pollen from the all american weed. Ground Cherry.... Physalis to you sciencey types. The thing about Physalis is that it is very shy about showing its sexual parts. The flowers dangle underneath its leafy roof and are this side of green for a yellow flower.

This bee collects pollen from the weedy, but native, Physalis or ground cherry plants. The flowers of this group are low and dangly and tend to be overlooked as does Colletes latitarsis. Likely more common than would appear as it rarely goes into traps and is hard to find unless hunted for directly. Joe Milone was the photographer.

Ah, Badllands National Parks. One of my favorite places. So very quiet with lots of bees tucked into subtle places. In some places .... huge densities. Here is the common Colletes phaceliae. Lovely in its slightly heart shaped face. Photo by Hannah Sutton.

Colletes pahceliae - As you might suspect it is a lover of the plant phaceliae. Many of the Colletes are tight plant specialists. Only feeding their babies the pollen from one group of plants. With that lifestyle comes your status becomes linked to the the status of those plants. The status of those native plants are a mirror of how we treat our environments.

Colletes pahceliae - As you might suspect it is a lover of the plant phaceliae. Many of the Colletes are tight plant specialists. Only feeding their babies the pollen from one group of plants. With that lifestyle comes your status becomes linked to the the status of those plants. The status of those native plants are a mirror of how we treat our environments.

Another Coelioxys nest parasite bee from the Adirondack Mountains of New York. This one is a nest parasite of big Leaf Cutters like Megachile latimanus. Here are shots of a male and a female.

The most common Coelioxys in the East. This is C. sayi. Now, C. sayi is a nest parasite (like all Coelioxys) and it likes to drop its eggs in the nest of what is usually the most common Leaf Cutter in the East Megachile mendica.

The most common Coelioxys in the East. This is C. sayi. Now, C. sayi is a nest parasite (like all Coelioxys) and it likes to drop its eggs in the nest of what is usually the most common Leaf Cutter in the East Megachile mendica.

Acadia National Park, Maine

Coelioxys vigilans, Dominican Republic, male

Coelioxys vigilans, Dominican Republic

Coelioxys coturnix, female, July 2012 along Railroad tracks in Cumberland Maryland

I stopped by a pullout in the sandhills of Nebraska on my way to the Badlands one year and just did some collecting off the sweet clover and other mostly weedy plants that lined the dirt parking area and along the nearby rail road tracks....fantastically abundant with bees. This was one of them the relatively common Colletes robertsonii. Photo by Erick Hernandez.

A little series of pictures of Colletes robertsonii from the Sandhills of Nebraska...Hooker county. A Midwestern species, this male and female were found in a nice patch of flowers along the road in a small pull off. Lovely country...the Sandhills. Photos by Erick Hernandez.

Not a great specimen, but then again, the species is one we have seen only a few times... you get what you can take. As the name implies there MIGHT be a relationship between this species and golden rod. Is that true? Someone needs to look at little more deeply and perhaps look at the pollen on the bodies of these bees to make such declarations.

Rarity here. This is species was described in the 1950s, named after the town it was collected near and only a handful of specimens have ever been collected that I am aware of. In fact it is so rare that it was on our list of "missing" species, published in 2011.

A blueberry specialist. Look how long that face is...The space between the mandible and the eye is what bee heads often use to separate species. This Colletes validus has a huggggggeeee malar space...other Colletes species essentially have none, the mandible being directly at the base of the eye. Why?

Look at the veryyyyyyy long distance from the bottom of the compound eye to the mandible base (technically this is called the malar space). Few bees show this long a head and it is nearly distinctive within Colletes at least in the north. This is a species that likes to hang out around blueberries and other Vaccinium type things.

Bedraggled Bee. We picture here Colletes willistoni, with mussy hair, something Colletes is prone to. For me this is mostly irritating, in that they don't clean up well for their pictures, for the bees, well, its hard to say, they are an old lineage and apparently great looking hair under all conditions was not their evolutionary priority.

Female Colletes compactus