Images

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.

And now....Ceratina from Asia! Vietnam to be exact. The overall shape and aspect of Ceratinaness remains but what lovely facial colors or maculations as the old literature calls them. A betting person would use the patterns of past specimens to guess that the female will have fewer maculations, but the stripe running down the center of the clypeus will remain.

Tiny, Tiny, 10x shot of Ceratina arizonensis from the Zuma Canyon in the Santa Monica National Recreation Area in coastal California. Almost all Ceratina have that white stripe (or some greater embellishment thereof) on their face and are relatively hairless, perhaps because of their lifestyle in the pith of plant stems or...perhaps not.

Ceratina buscki a very small shiny green species from Panama as collected by Sandra Rehan as part of her studies. Ceratina species are almost always stem nesters in the soft pith of brambles and other small woody plants and can be one of the most common bees in some areas.

More central american Ceratina shots...here is the male of C. buscki shown earlier. Specimen collected by Sandra Rehan. Photography Information: Canon 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.

More central american Ceratina shots...here is the male of C. buscki shown earlier. Specimen collected by Sandra Rehan. Photography Information: Canon 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.

Ceratina cockerelli, male

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How could one not love the Genus of Ceratina? Elegant, with just the right combination of extra interesting features to keep the interest up. Note the raised clypeus in this one and the lovely fat hairs along the abdominal sections. From the collections of Sandra Rehan at the University of New Hampshire.

Ah, a mysterious Ceratina introduced into the Hawaiian island chain. This species is found throughout the islands now, but no one is quite sure what the species is. It is near the species C. dentipes but may or may not be it. So many mysteries in the world and too many introduced species. Photography by Sierra Williams and Photoshopping by Elizabeth Garcia.

Tiny Ceratina from Panama...in the first picture in this series you will see a rod going into its body to hold it in position for photographing in our mini bee studio. Actually this is not a rod but the very tip of the finest acupuncture pin. Yep, that is a small bee.

Yep, there are a lot of Ceratinas out there in the world. Here is the last in the series of Ceratinas from Sandra Rehan. As usual it is a small one from Panama. Tiny bees almost always have plenty of wing pop...no exception here.

Yet more Ceratina pictures, diversity demands it. This series is from specimens collected in Panama by Sandra Rehan (UNH) as part of her mission to know everything there is to know about Ceratinas.

The very small and skinny, beetle hole nesting, Chelostoma philadelphi. A specialist on Philadelphus (mock orange). This species is most commonly seen on the non native European Mock Orange that was widely planted in the olden days.

A series of pictures of a male and female species that loves Bellflowers (Campanula). Meaning that the female of this species provisions its nest (note: males never help in all Hymenoptera) with the pollen of this plant.

A new species for Vermont, this invasive bee is a specialist on Campanula flowers, collected by Anna Beauchemin, Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200, link to a .pdf of our set up is located in our profile

Chiasmognathus c.f. gussakovskii, Cross Mandibled Bee, specimen collected by Wojciech Pulawksi in TajikistanVery small bees have very small nest parasites.

Pseudagapostemon citricornis - More Chilean bees from Laurence Packer's expedition to southern Chile. Photographs by Kelly Graninger.

A lovely blue green teal spider wasp with purple highlights and infuscated wings. Collected in Southern Chile with Laurence Packer.

The langorous bright whiteness of the Virginia Fringetree...this specimenk (and photograph) from howard county taken by Helen Lowe Metzman as part of her documentation of native plants. Attractive to bees. Should be planted more often.

GTMO - Cuba, June 2011, Need identification