Images

Here you have a honey bee and two mites upon that honey bee. Both are varroa mites, one by the leg is feeding on the bee and the other is hitching a ride after leaving another bee. This drama was provided by Krisztina Christmon at the University of Maryland where she studies the life history of mites and bees. We did a little back lit shot here, more to come.

Key Biscayne National Park, Florida

What a lovely female Anthidium manicatum from Massachusetts. This species is a non-native species that has successfully invaded much of the Eastern parts of North America, in particular it is fond of ornamental gardens containing furry leaved plants which it uses to line its nest.

Anthidium manicatum is an invasive bee that showed up sometime in the 19 eighties in North America. It is particularly fond of garden plants such as stachys and appears to largely be restricted to areas of human occupancy. The specimens come from Massachusetts, and I wish I could recall who gave them to me, but for now I have forgotten.

Anthidium manicatum is an invasive bee that showed up sometime in the 19 eighties in North America. It is particularly fond of garden plants such as stachys and appears to largely be restricted to areas of human occupancy. The specimens come from Massachusetts, and I wish I could recall who gave them to me, but for now I have forgotten.

Anthidium manicatum, male

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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

The Drone or male of the honeybee. Note the eyes, they actually meet on top of the head. It lives only do mate with a virgin queen and the expanded compount eyes help. Note the weak reflection of the female's heavily modified hind tibia, still expanded, but not really functionally, probably a molecularly cheap byproduct of being haploid.

Honey bee face, Apis mellifera, note the hairs coming off the compound eyes...a distinctive honey bee trait compared to native bees (other than Coelioxys)Beltsville Maryland

The Honey bee, Apis mellifera

More worker honey bee shots from USDA honey bee specimens. These are both in the light body format and were collected in Beltsville, Maryland by Francisco Posada from the National Honey Bee Lab.

Wild Sarsaparilla, Aralia nudicaulis. Specimen and photo by Helen Lowe Metzman.

Paraguay! Cactus! This species of tiny bee (Arhysosoage species) and its kin feed their young Cactus pollen. One of many species which are pollen specialists in the world. Much to discover and explore in the part of the world, particularly the Chaco region. Specimen from the Packer lab at York University.

Butterfly Weed. The orange trickster. Providing nectar, but instead of edible pollen for a nice bee to eat. Wham. it locks packets of pollen onto the legs of a bee or butterfly and if the bee is strong enough it pulls free to possibly fly off to maybe or maybe not insert those pollinia into another butterfly weed plant.

Orange in Saturation. No need for Photoshop filters here. This is the orange orange of butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa, a magnet for bees and butterflies, but provider only of nectar. Its visitors transfer butterfly weed pollen in sacs that get clipped onto the legs of big visitors when their foot slips into the florets.

Anthophora bomboides, a rather cosmopolitan Anthophora. Found throughout the north and down the mountain chains on both sides of the continent. I have my suspicions that western and eastern populations are possibly different species, but so far no one has talked to the bees' dna about that.

If you want a group of bees that generally present themselves well and look like bees not wasps choose the Digger Bee grouip. This male Anthophora californica was collected by Don Harvey in Hidalgo County, NM. Dryland area for sure and the distribution sits right in the dry areas of the West.

Anthophora curta....found in the drylands/deserts of western U.S. and Mexico. This is a rather small Anthophora and like many of the group, well groomed with small, short, mini=branched hairs. It seems to prefer composites and this particular one was found near the nowhere place of San Simone, Arizona at the eastern edge of its range. Collected by Don Harvey.