Images

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.

Perdita asteris, Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

Perdita asteris, Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

Fort Mantanzas has more cool bees to share with use from a tiny coastal monument run by the park service along the upper coast of Florida. This time more junior bees in the genus Perdita. Photography by Sierra Williams, photoshopping by Elizabeth Garcia.

New Vermont Species Record. This little tiny bee is a specialist on a plant that most people pull out of their gardens, Physalis, or Ground Cherry, this plant has a number of specialists associated with it and, we should think about it as something to plant in our gardens!

New Vermont Species Record. This little tiny bee is a specialist on a plant that most people pull out of their gardens, Physalis, or Ground Cherry, this plant has a number of specialists associated with it and, we should think about it as something to plant in our gardens!

A tiny sand loving Perdita from Maryland

A tiny sand loving Perdita from Maryland

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A wee 2mm Perilampid from Hart-Miller Island collected by Gene Scarpulla and awaiting final determination.

The oft times difficult to id male of the not so hard to id female Osmia georgica. Sometimes bees are inconvenient to work with. Picture by Amanda Robinson. 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.

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.

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We have already added the male of this species. As the name implies this species is rufous in its hairs. Check the hairs filled with pollen underneath the abdomen. Collected by Jelle Devalez in the Aegean Islands of Greece. Photography by Brooke Alexander.

Black-throated Blue Warbler, Setophaga caerulescens, killed striking a building in Washington D.C. in 2012 during migration. Retrieved by dclightsout group.

The hind paw of the Short-tailed Shrew, Blarina brevicauda, found by Liz Sellers, dead, at Banshee Reeks in Virgina. So very delicate. Photograph taken by Liz Sellers. 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.

Blarina brevicauda - the short -tailed shrew. This one found dead in the yard in Upper Marlboro, MD. 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, link to a .pdf of our set up is located in our profile

Here is a stitched together row of 11 individual macro pictures of a set of migrating birds (can you identify them all?) that collided with building this fall. I think this is 37,000 pixels X 5,000 pixel picture so it would make quite the long banner if printed out (probably in sections).

Ah, a tiny little iris. One of the Blue-eyed Grasses. These make wonderful little tiny garden potted plants by the way. Bees visit them regularly, though the plant is so small its role as bee food is probably overlooked more than not. Sisyrinchium angustifolium. Specimen and picture by Helen Lowe Metzman.

In keeping with the last series of pictures here is the lavae of the Small Hive Beetle (Aethina tumida). Famous for pillaging honey stores and pollen caps of honey bees, creating a disgusting slimy mess of everything including the psyche of the bee keep. Larvae wrangled by USDA honey bee whisperer Francisco Posada.

Carrion Flower. Yep, fly pollinated...lovely vine design too. Smilax herbacea.