Images

Leptochilus acolhuus, Key Biscayne National Park, Florida, Thanks to Matthias Buck for the determination.

A sand loving, ground nesting Megachile from Gateway National Recreation Area on Sandy Hook in New Jersey. Photograph by Brooke Alexander.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, link to a .pdf of our set up is located in our profile

Megachile apicalis - Invasive species: Specialist on knapweeds: Not common unless you haunt industrial and other wastelands where it can be common. Always carry a net in these areas so that you clearly as seen as a harmless nature nut. Collected in Cumberland, Maryland. Picture by Heagan Ahmed and photoshopped by Elizabeth Garcia.

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

A pair of head shots...including the rarely seen underside of a bee head. The species: Megachile campanulae. From: Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Status common and regular if you swing a net in the summer. Megachile always have lovely omatidia (those lovely hex things on the compound eyes).

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

Melissodes apicata...this is a wetland species that spends its time in and around Pickerelweed and only Pickerelweed. How interesting. Photograph by Dejen Mengis. 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.

If all the Pickerelweed in the world would disappear...this species would too. This is Melissodes apicata; a male, as you can see form its longgggg antennae and its young can only be fed pickerelweed pollen.

If all the Pickerelweed in the world would disappear...this species would too. This is Melissodes apicata; a male, as you can see form its longgggg antennae and its young can only be fed pickerelweed pollen.

The most common Melissodes in the Mid-Atlantic area is M. bimaculata. It occurs commonly in gardens and makes its way around many floral plants, unlike many of its cousins which are picky and may only take pollen from one species of plant. This one from Caroline County, MD and Photographed by Amanda Robinson.