Images

A small cute bee from Costa Rica. Collected by Tim Mcmahon on one of his several bee trips to that country. I can't scrounge up much about these hole nesters from Central and South America, but likely there are Brazilian papers out on the topic. I particularly like the prep and form of this specimen, pure in its positioning of wings and body.

A small cute bee from Costa Rica. Collected by Tim Mcmahon on one of his several bee trips to that country. I can't scrounge up much about these hole nesters from Central and South America, but likely there are Brazilian papers out on the topic.

Male, this fun species nests in the walls of my adobe walled house where it aggregates in large numbers where the adobe is thickest. They create small dropping tunnels at that project out from wall ...function unknown.

Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Anthophora bomboides. Fuzzy . Faking the bumble bee look to fool birds into thinking they can sting like a bumble bee. Here is one from San Juan Island in Washington State. This species occurs throughout the continent....but....its look differs across that huge geographic range. Are they more than one species or not? Does anyone care? You?

Sunflowers. Specifically, the genus Helianthus to separate out the other "sunflower" plants. Only found in North America. So tall and glorious that we have adopted many for our gardens. Thrusting skyward they telegraph their supply of pollen and nectar to the bees that only feed their young pollen of Sunflower. Here is one of them. The appropriately named A.

Another uncommon Andrena bee in the subgenus Trachandrena, this one seems to favor wooded areas. Formerly little known in the state, it is now recorded in 11 counties. Photography by Hannah Sutton.

Maryland, Anne Arundel County

Maryland, Anne Arundel County

Andrena hippotes is another Andrena in the Tracandrena subgenus. It does have the distinctive feature, at least in the East, of having orange legs, which helped separated out from the other Tracandrena species. However, like many of these colorations and markings in bees, it is likely to sometimes not be there.

Yellow Bee: Yellow Pollen : Andrena hirticincta : Maine : Agriculture field edges. This is a fall bee, a bee of goldenrod and aster. How nice. Collected By Brianne Du Clos and photographed by Dejen Mengis.

Andrena ilicis. A bit of a mystery bee. It seems to be associated with Woodlands, but other than that I don't have much of a feel for the species. This one was collected in Somerset County Maryland.

From malaise traps set in the woodland bottomlands of the Patuxent River comes the uncommonly detected Andrena illicis. Here is a male with its notable orangish legs.

Andrena lupinorum, Pennington County, South Dakota, Badlands National Park

Andrena macra, a southern bee that just barely makes its way to Maryland. Seems to like to aggregate nests in sandy areas and create small colonies, although colonies are probably a poor word choice, perhaps more likely they just like to nest near one another.

A little tiny Andrena bee collected in the sandhills of North Carolina by Heather Campbell. Not much is know about this species, other than it appears to be uncommon and spotty in occurrence and runs from the West to the East coast with a fair amount of variation, which usually indicates that other species may be hidden within this one. So much work to do.

Andrena merriami, female Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Another dark northern Andrena. This one also runs down the high elevations of the Rockies and the Appalachians. Collected in Hancock County, Maine and contibuted by Alison Dibble.

Another dark northern Andrena. This one also runs down the high elevations of the Rockies and the Appalachians. Collected in Hancock County, Maine and contibuted by Alison Dibble.

Andrena nasonii. In this case a female, one of the least distinguishable species there is, but fortunately very common and so there are small and differences between the species and others that together allows us to recognize it when plowing through thousands of them.