Images

A nice fluffy male Centris attripes from Central Texas collected during a family reunion. Centris are large bumble bee sized bees and as you move into desert and tropical area in the Americas the number of bumble bees decline and the number of often oil using Centris species and the equally large Carpenter bees increase.

Puerto Rico! What a snappy looking bee with its orange, yellow, and glinting blue patterns interspersed with the standard blacks and whites of most bees. How lovely to that this is a bee found in agricultural areas...a sort of Bumble Bee replacement in a land where Bumble Bees don't exist. Collected by Sara Prado in her investigations of agriculture and bees.

Centris...the tropical western hemisphere's answer to the Bumblebee. Bumblebees are absent from the Caribbean but bees of the genus Centris are of the same size and shape and fill the same floral niche muscling their way into large tropical flowers.

Bahamas

Cuba, GTMO, Guantanamo Bay

A series of pictures of a queen and a male of the northernish bumble bee Bombus vagans. Still a reasonable common component of northern Appalachian systems, its been retreating from its lower elevation and southern edges over the last century.

One of the common and strikingly dark western bumble bees. This species largely restricted to coastal and Sierra ranges. The current specimen comes from Claire Kremen's study of Yosemite National Park bees. Photographs by Anders Croft.

More black bumble bees from Yosemite National Park. Here is the male of Bombus vosnesenskii. This species was described by the relatively prolific Polish Taxonomist Oktawiusz Wincenty Bourmeister-Radoszkowski who pumped out a great many new descriptions of bees in many parts of the world.

Brachyhesma species, Australian Minute Bee, specimen collected in AustraliaLong: Until recently those who worked on the taxonomy of bees, or taxonomy in general for that matter, were men. Culturally that imbalance is now shifting, though we clearly still have a ways to go.

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A small braconid wasp caught in a malaise trap outside the lab in Beltsville, MDCanon 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

Bombus auricomus, A species regularly found in urban areas, but uncommon elsewhere, this one is from Baltimore along powerlines near the collectively owned Armistead Gardens

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, collected at Morris Arboretum by Stephanie Wilson

Male Bombus bimaculatus from Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, captured in the new native plant circle

Another Chrysidid wasp (cuckoo wasp) from the Hart-Miller Dredge Spoil site in Baltimore Harbor, collected by Eugene Scarpulla, photographed by Brooke Alexander Identification by Lynn KimseyCanon 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 o

Another Chrysidid wasp (cuckoo wasp) from the Hart-Miller Dredge Spoil site in Baltimore Harbor, collected by Eugene Scarpulla, photographed by Brooke Alexander Identification by Lynn KimseyCanon 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 o

Another Chrysidid wasp (cuckoo wasp) from the Hart-Miller Dredge Spoil site in Baltimore Harbor, collected by Eugene Scarpulla, photographed by Brooke Alexander Identification by Lynn KimseyCanon 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 o

Chrysocolletes species, Wavy-haired Bee, specimen collected by Laurence in Australia Another genus of bees whose range is restricted to Australia; five species are known, but three of them are only known from male specimens, the females remain unknown.

An aptly named Rubytail so pungently colored that I had to take its picture when I came across it in Laurence Packer's Lab. If only this were a little larger an entire Kyrgyz tourism industry could be developed around just this one species. Thanks to Alxndr Brg for the determination.

Cicindela sexguttata

Tiger Beetle from one of the old sand mines that line the Patuxent River. Thankfully it is a sand mine that never was capped with clay and planted with invasive non-native plants...the standard operation in many parts of the country. Lisa Murray took the photographs.