Images

Denny Johnson from Eau Claire County in Wisconsin provided this specimen. Another Lasioglossum and one that was until recently cleared up by Jason Gibbs involved in thousands of misidentifications...many by myself.

A tricky to identify small sweat bee. Many are identified and there are decades of incorrect keys, murky specimen selection in collections, and even now that Jason Gibbs has provided good clear descriptions they still are so close to other species that ID is not trivial.

One of the resin collecting bees, they are in the leaf-cutting bee genus, but separate their walls with resin rather than leaves. They love it if you drill holes in your porch posts (personal observation). This Megachile exilis males has some expanded front leg segments that help in its id...how nice. Collected in Talbot County, Maryland.

Megachile farinosa: a rather rare species and with conspicuous red legs, a feature which is very uncommon in European Megachile. This species flies in high summer and the female gathers pollen only on the flowers of Vitex agnus-castus.Some alternative or past names for the species include Chalicodoma farinosa or Pseudomegachile farinosa.

Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Badlands National Park, South Dakota

A mysterious species of Megachile that seems to have recently become common in the East, this specimen or one like it represents the first Maryland record and was collected from the back parking lot of Redskin's Stadium, not exactly the wilderness (or perhaps just a different wilderness..).

Megachile integra is one of a small clade of Megachile and Trachusa that need small viney things in the pea family (fuzzy beans and milk peas) to feed their babies.

Megachile integra is one of a small clade of Megachile and Trachusa that need small viney things in the pea family (fuzzy beans and milk peas) to feed their babies.

Collected by Heather Campbell, from the Sandhills of North Carolina. Photograph by Wayne Boo.Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, 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

Megachile lanata, GTMO Cuba, Female

A common and large leafcutting bee from Maine, collected by Brianne Du Clos. This is a male and note the large expanded tarsal segments on the front legs. These are used to hide the females eyes during mating. Dejen Mengis is the photographer.

A common and large leafcutting bee from Maine, collected by Brianne Du Clos. This is a male and note the large expanded tarsal segments on the front legs. These are used to hide the females eyes during mating. Dejen Mengis is the photographer and Elizabeth Garcia did the shopping.

A sharp looking Megachile from Yosemite National Park. Megachile melanophaea is a bee that runs all across the arctic, the northern parts of the East and down the mountains in the West. Unlike many northern species is does not seem to be interested in the Appalachians.

Leaf cutting bees like this Megachile petulans are found around this world. Common and often nesting in holes in wood, some made by our wood boring beetle friends and some made by people (consciously or unconsciously). I am presuming that M.

Leaf cutters never seem to end. Here is Megachile petulans, southernish in distribution and with a lovely display of the complicated tongue architecture bees have. Tongue? This structure is so far removed from our tongues it is ridiculous. Really, think of bees and insects as coming from a different planet.

A southern bee that just barely gets up into the upper coastal plain of North America. This specimen comes from Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge where it found its way tot their lovely pollinator garden. In that same garden its nest parasite, Coelioxys germana provided Maryland's first specimen record. Photography by Wayne Boo.

Megachile poeyi, the most common Megachile, leaf cutting bee on GTMO in Cuba

More Leaf-cutters from South Texas from my recent trip. Here is Megachile policaris. Big, found on Sunflowers alone roadsides, Note the big cutting tooth on its mandibles used to cut leaves to line its nests. A particularly trim species with nice sharp lines of bright white hairs along the rims of the abdomen.

From Alleghany County in western Maryland in the town of Cumberland down along the Railroad tracks, which is a go to collecting spot for me, since there are almost always tall weeds with bees on them. One wishes that other people did the same things with native meadow plants along roads and yards instead of just mowing them to pieces all the time.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee - A leaf cutting bee, common throughout much of North America