Images

James River at West View, teneral 4/23/2011, Collector S.M. Roble, beautiful stained glass wing coloration

Ophiogomphus susbehcha, cast skin, collected by Richard Orr along the Potomac River

Euglossa....the orchid bees, swanky glintlings of the New World tropical forests. The males gather fragrances produced by orchids who are then pollinated by the infatuations of these males.

Close-up Osage orange fruit, Maryland

More brilliant greens, blues, and purples from the metallic mason bees of western North America. This one (O. aglaia) comes from Yosemite National Park , where Claire Kremen's group has been looking at post burn bee communities in areas of chronic burns. Photograph by Anders Croft.

More brilliant greens, blues, and purples from the metallic mason bees of western North America. This one (O. aglaia) comes from Yosemite National Park , where Claire Kremen's group has been looking at post burn bee communities in areas of chronic burns. Photograph by Anders Croft.

More brilliant greens, blues, and purples from the metallic mason bees of western North America. This one (O. aglaia) comes from Yosemite National Park , where Claire Kremen's group has been looking at post burn bee communities in areas of chronic burns. Photograph by Anders Croft.

A nice blue Osmia albolateralis from the high elevations of Yosemite National Park, part of fire studies from Claire Kremen's group.

A bee I often associate with Sandy areas...this one captured on Cape Cod National Seashore as part of comparative studies of dune loving bees.

Bright and shiny purple green blue unlike the relatively drab eastern species this is Osmia kincadii...found in the upper elevations of Yosemite National Park as part of a burn study. Photo by Anders Croft.

Ah, what a lovely ethereal composition. This is the male of the Blue Orchard Bee, studied for its use in orchards as a pollinator. Collected and photographed by Laura Campbell in the Virginia Beach area.

Some Osmia are not shiny metallic green or blue, but black to midnight blue like our buddy O. montana here. Collected in the mountains of Yosemite National Park as part of a burn recovery project by Claire Kremen's group. Photos by Anders Croft.

null

null

This is a wee little male bee in the genus Osmia (O. pumila). It is perhaps the smallest Osmia in the East and perfect for a full facial shot with the 10X lens set up. Still need to work on lighting issues, mabye more diffusers around specimen, but things are moving in the right direction with reasonably good definition of hairs and eye omatidia.

Osmia rufohirta - An Osmia from the Grecian Isles that nests in snail shells. Not this specimen as it is a male and does essentially nothing but mate. Lots of reddish hairs on this species as the name implies. Specimen collected by Jelle Devalez.

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.

Now here is a beauty. Nomada graenicheri, rare as all get out and its host is unknown (but could be one of the summer Andrena...). This one was collected in the mountains of Virginia by Megan Ayers as part of her team's efforts to survey the bees of that state. For some reason the facial shot presents notes of anime...at least to me. Photo by Erick Hernandez.

Dominican Republic

Dominican Republic

Dominican Republic,