Images

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Another sand loving bee from Cumberland Island, Georgia. Distributed throughout the Southeast. Thistle Droege is the photoshopper and Kamren Jefferson the photographer.

Acadia National Park brings you a common northern Osmia (Osmia simillima)....large and with oddly shortened and modified front legs, which must be important for something. Picture by Sierra Williams, shopping by Elizabeth Garcia.

A somewhat big and somewhat northern Osmia. One of the frustrating things about bees is that entire groups look about the same, such is Osmia.

A tiny tiny bee, a specialist on Potentilla or Cinquefoil plants in North America. This one came from a colony I discovered in a dirt patch right in the front lawn of our laboratory. These sorts of bare dirt / clay / sand areas are often great bee nesting sites.

Undescribed Panurginus Species from Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Undescribed Panurginus Species from Badlands National Park

One of the graciously metallic species of the subgenus Paracmaeodera found on flowers and bowl traps in Kruger National Park, South Africa. Photo by Anders Croft.

Paracolletes species, On and Off Bee, specimen collected in AustraliaThis species is unusually sexually dimorphic in color. The males are quite bright, as can be seen here, the females are what might be called the "null hypothesis" for bee coloration "“ brownish grey on the head and thorax with a black abdomen with white transverse hair bands.

A little flower fly from the Badlands of South Dakota, this one was part of a study led by Diane Larson looking at the web of pollinators on some of the rare plant communities found in the gumbo soils of Badlands National Park. An interesting species found in North America, Europe, and Africa.

Why do you insist, Pilgrim, on planting your garden with geraniums, tea roses, and begonias? You could be planting your garden to Woodlands sunflowers and then you would have the opportunity to help out the uncommon and undoubtedly declining Paranthidium jugatorium.

First Maryland Record, Allegany County, Maryland, Parnthidium jugatorium female, July 2010 on a woodland sunflower in the Mountains

Paranthidium jugatorium, male July 2012, Allegany County, First State record.

Feeds Baby Oil. Yes, a subcult of the many bees of the world are those who, in addition to feeding their young pollen, feed them oil from plants that produce oil for that very purpose. Here is such a bee, a Paratetrapedia collected by Tim McMahon in Costa Rica. It has special hairs to transport the oil to the nest.

The Carpenter bee flower. This is one of the passion flowers, Passiflora incarnata, designed to be pollinated by Carpenter bees which fit right in and are daubed by pollen (note the stigmas are those large white things ABOVE the stamens). Since each vine is self incompatible they have to get it right. Flower and photograph by Helen Lowe Metzman.

This is Passiflora lutea. Lovely small, Yellow Passion Fruit. Worth planting this around your garden and watching to see if you can get a state bee record of Pseudopanurgus passiflorae...which, indeed, has been found in other states by gardeners. And besides, its pretty. Flower and photo from Helen Lowe Metzman.

Here is a series of male and female western glinting Osmia. There is a whole clade of Osmia that have thrust aside the drab dark colors of their Osmini kin for fresh look of maximum iridescence. That iridescence trends across greens and blues and purples with males often more on the green side.

Here is a series of male and female western glinting Osmia. There is a whole clade of Osmia that have thrust aside the drab dark colors of their Osmini kin for fresh look of maximum iridescence. That iridescence trends across greens and blues and purples with males often more on the green side.

Check out the midnight blue on the female. Your Prius should look so good. Female photos by Wayne Boo. 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.

Check out the midnight blue on the female. Your Prius should look so good. Female photos by Wayne Boo. 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.

Ah the glow in the dark Mason bees of the West. Very jealous...we don't have this model of Osmia out east. For some reason bright green works for a whole passel of Osmia and the related Hoplitis. Funny how this blingy green/blue/purple invades certain genera of bees and is completely absent from others. What is the driver. I like to think it is bee aesthetics.