Images

Here we present a series of pictures of Polistes wasp nests with lavae, pupae, eggs, and interlopers.

Damselfly in Hand Sanitizer, Beltsville, Maryland

Water Strider, Gerridae, Beltsville, Maryland, Suspended in Hand Sanitzer

Ah, such an interesting plant for bees. Pontedaria cordata....Pickerelweed. Lives out in fairly deep water, emerges in the spring...sends up a spike of blue flowers in mid-summer. This plant is very attractive to long-tongued bees which have to reach way down to get nectar and pollen.

Ant, The Winter Ant, Prenolepis imparis, aka False HoneyPot ant. This is the head of the male. Small, taken with 10X microscope objective on a 200mm Pentax. Found this past spring in a swarm by Jan Reese who noticed Cedar Waxwings munching on the males in St. Michael's Maryland. Another day in the life of Earth.

This little red bee was collected on spotted beebalm. It seems to be the only species of plant, with the possibility of some close relatives being involved, that this bee finds worthy of collecting pollen from. If you Google images of spotted beebalm you'll see that it is quite the complicated and rather ornate flowering plant.

One of the best bee plants...big, tall, and simply by being a tree, voluminous in pollen and nectar resources. Black Cherry. Prunus serotina. Specimen and plants by Helen Lowe Metzman.

Pseudomyrmex gracilis from Biscayne National Park, Florida. Thanks to Doug Yanega for the Genus name and James Trager for the species name of this introduced species

Laura Russo collected these lovely squash bees (Peponapis pruinosa) near State College, Pennsylvania. Aptly named, this bee only feeds its young on the pollen of Cucurbita (pumpkins, squash, gourds and the like). This genus is native to the hemisphere....peaking in numbers in the Mexican highlands, but do not occur naturally in Pennsylvania (too cold).

One the spider wasps that are often called Tarantula Hawks, many often display various shades of red in their wings, perhaps as a warning to birds as their sting is notoriously painful. This one was collected on the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba and photographed by Aaman Mengis

Pompilid Spider Wasp, Central Highlands High Elevation Domincan RepublicPepsis ruficornis

petrified Forest national Park, Apache County, Arizona

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

Experiment - Thanks to the person for suggesting looking into one-way glass to eliminate double reflections in shots taken on glass. In this case the robberfly was photographed on a piece of glass that was coated with the mirror finish one-way film that you can buy in the hardware store for to add daytime privacy to your houses.

Dead Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Archilochus colubris, after striking a building in the fall of 2012 in Washington D.C. Collected by Lights out DC