Images

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.

Queen Bee photo spread. Collected by Tim McMahon from a colony in Talbot County, while slightly gummy as Honeybees are want to be, this series shows the longer abdomen, the odd curly dark hairs on top of the head and the broad hind tibia, but lacking the hairs and pollen basket that the workers have.

Apis mellifera, honey bee, pupae in the purple eye phase. Specimens provided by Krisztina Christmon from University of Maryland. 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.

Apis mellifera, honey bee, pupae in the purple eye phase. Specimens provided by Krisztina Christmon from University of Maryland. 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.

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

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

This little beauty is the underside of Argyrogrammana nurtia from Peru, one of the metalmarks. This one collected by Brian Harris at the Natural History Museum at the Smithsonian. So fine.

Paraguay! Cactus! This 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.

Paraguay! Cactus! This 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.

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.

The wheel bug...of death. A very large bug whose impales other insects, injects liquids that dissolve the insides f the insect, and then sucks it back up.

Black Chokeberry. Yummy bee plant and yummy (though slightly bitter) berry full of antioxidants. Sadly this seems to be a target of deer munching, but its available for planting in your yard and guaranteed to be a good plant in the spring and supply some breakfast berries for your cereal.

Black Chokeberry, Aronia melanocarpa. Consider the chokeberry....native and super full of antioxidants, also super attractive to native bees. Why don't you have any in your yard? Specimen and photo by Helen Lowe Metzman.

Oak Timberworm, Arrhenodes minutus, and an interesting mite on its mid femur, found at my moth light...likely attracted to the area due to the fresh red oak I am adding to the wood pile.

Oak Timberworm, Arrhenodes minutus, and an interesting mite on its mid femur, found at my moth light...likely attracted to the area due to the fresh red oak I am adding to the wood pile.

Common Milkweed - The primary foodplant in most of the range of the loved-by-all Monarch Butterfly . Also a weed, if you are a wheat farmer, and also something much less common in agricultural landscapes where they dominated in the past. Why? Because we figured out how to create food plants that cannot be killed by herbicides.

Common Milkweed - The primary foodplant in most of the range of the loved-by-all Monarch Butterfly . Also a weed, if you are a wheat farmer, and also something much less common in agricultural landscapes where they dominated in the past. Why? Because we figured out how to create food plants that cannot be killed by herbicides.

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.

Another small Ashmeadiella species (A. aridula) again from Claire Kremen's studies. This one's distributions fills the western states but does not leak into Canada and Mexico. I am sure there are stories to tell here, but I basically know that they are small and nest in holes in wood...often using rosin. Photos by Erick Hernandez.

Here is a bee from the Central Valley of California,part of Claire Kremen's 10 years study of hedgerows as bee repositories in industrial ag lands. Pollen-wise it leans towards composites, and, this is also a bee that can be found all the way to the East Coast... Georgia and North Carolina even. Small so likely often overlooked.

From Santa Rosa Island , one of the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California and part of the Channel Islands National Park come this tiny Ashmeadiella.