Images

Ah, another beautiful green Osmia bee from the western U.S. O. kincaidii is the name, makes nest in holes in wood and lines them with leaf pulp. Praise the color selections that Nature provides. Collected in Yosemite National Park by Claire Kremen's Bee Troopers. Photograph by Anders Croft.

Osmia laeta. There are quite a number of Osmia out there. Despite their beauty, they can be irritatingly difficult to split apart. People who can help with identifications are definitely the bottleneck. This beauty comes from Yosemite National Park...part of the many studies of the Claire Kremen lab. Photo by Samia Shell and Lela Versteegen.

The classic Blue Orchard Bee, that many gardeners make nests for by drilling blocks of wood or buying little houses or straws. All well and good except for the fact that 2 recent Asian Osmia species are now starting to dominate populations in both urban and rural areas. O. taurus and O. cornifrons.

Who doesn't love an Osmia...particularly an Osmia paradisica from the under visited Great Basin National Park. Picture taken by Brooke Alexander. 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.

Who doesn't love an Osmia...particularly an Osmia paradisica from the under visited Great Basin National Park. Picture taken by Brooke Alexander. 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.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

An Osmia...one of the group of western species that are bright shiny green instead of the more common dark metallic blue. This one was found in a bee garden in San Francisco under study by Jaime Pawelek. Am pinging Jaime to see if she knows what species this could be.

Terrible specimen, but the only specimen on hand for Osmia subarctica. A male with distinctive upturned gonostyli on its genitalia....as we all kinow..!

New Zealand. A pretty big island group. It has roughly the land mass of Colorado. Bee-wise the comparison ends. Colorado probably has well over 1000 bee species where as New Zealand...but about 50. Here is one. Nesocolletes (an endemic New Zealand genus) fulvescens. This was collected by Mike Turell while visiting. I like the mood of these pictures.

Like islands in general, there are not many species of bees in New Zealand. John Ascher's species of the world lists only 49 and a BIG chunk of them are not native to the islands. This one is native. This is Nesocolletes fulvescens, one of 7 species in Nesocolletes all of whom are found only in New Zealand. Photo by Sydney Price.

Seeds from Nicotiana rustica, Super Glued to the point of a Number 2 insect pin. Note that some seeds were crushed during mailing.

Nomada affabilis...a very large Nomada. I think this species is almost certainly a nest parasite of bees in the genus Eucera...which is quite a different path from most of the other Nomada which are primarily, though not exclusively, nest parasites of Andrena.

This bee lays its eggs in the nests of Andrena macra. Well not this one because it is a male....but you get the point. MaLisa Springs collected this specimen in Southeastern Ohio. Photograph by Brooke Alexander.

One of the western Nomada bee species, that just barely makes into the East. Unusual in how white some of the markings are on the abdomen. This nest parasite was collected by Elaine Evans in North Dakota.

A moderate sized Nomada, a bee that lays its eggs in the nests of bees in the genus Andrena. This species, at least in the male, has a distinctive antennae. You can see it in at least the picture taken of the bee's side that the underside of the antenna is partially eroded away leaving a hollow on each segment.

A nest parasite, perhaps of Agapostemon splendens, this uncommon sand specialist is a good indicator of habitat worth retaining. Collected along the Atlantic Coast at: Fort Matanzas National Monument.

Nomada fragariae - A rare cleptoparasite, almost certainly of Andrena...but which species. There are very few records of this species, and only in the last few years has the female been described. In most collections the Nomada sit at the end in a mosh pit waiting for someone to identify them...a tricky group.

Funaria hygrometrica, identified by Charlie Davis, found in crack in stone deck of laboratory building; Beltsville, Maryland

Unknown species of moth collected during moth week in Upper Marlboro, Maryland

The Venus Comb Murex, Murex pecten. From the Philiipines in this case. This is a start of a fun exploration of some of the National Collections at the Smithsonian....Amanda Robinson brought this down for a photograph and Joe Milone did the photoshoping. Stacked this one using a 100mm macro lens.

Adult female, Harlequin bug, Murgantia histrionica, a common pest of brassicas, these were raised by the Weber USDA lab at Beltsville, Maryland