Images

Osmia simillima, female, Acadia National Park, Maine,

A somewhat big and somewhat northern Osmia. One of the frustrating things about bees is that entire groups look about the same, such is Osmia.

An Osmia...one of the group of western species that are bright shiny green instead of the more common dark metallic blue. This one was found in a bee garden in San Francisco under study by Jaime Pawelek. Am pinging Jaime to see if she knows what species this could be.

Within regions of conflict the opinionless great wheel of Nature silently continues. From the West Bank comes a snail shell nesting Osmia loaded with pollen, sometimes included in its own Palaearctic genus Hoplosmia and sometimes...not.

Terrible specimen, but the only specimen on hand for Osmia subarctica. A male with distinctive upturned gonostyli on its genitalia....as we all kinow..!

Pink Pollen Bee. Meet another lover of thistles. The large and late season Osmia texana. The pink pollen is the pink pollen of thistles (I think one of the non-native ones so maybe other thistles don't have pink pollen?).

Note the expanded base of the mandibles...Collected by Tim McMahon and the first state record for Maryland, Photographed by Aaman Mengis.Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Photographer: Sam Droege, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200

The smiling face of an American Cockroach...if you get over your pre-consieved notions, these are really pretty handsome insects and most people would not recognize them if they saw this picture.

Bittacomorpha clavipes - Here is a 10x shot of this lovely flies face, collected in my back yard in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Seems to have a very odd tongue.

Phenacolletes mimus, Australian Shorthair, specimen collected by Laurence Packer in AustraliaIn the dry, sparsely populated portions of Western Australia one can find the Australian Shorthair. While it is a pollen collecting bee, it has very short hairs, making it similar to some of the short, thick bodied waspy relatives of bees.

Phenacolletes mimus, Australian Shorthair, specimen collected by Laurence Packer in AustraliaIn the dry, sparsely populated portions of Western Australia one can find the Australian Shorthair. While it is a pollen collecting bee, it has very short hairs, making it similar to some of the short, thick bodied waspy relatives of bees.

Gall on Pin Oak, October, 2012, Prince George's County, Maryland

Possibly Merocoris distinctus...can any one confirm? Photographed by Dejen Mengis

Pachyprosopis cornuta, Horned Naked Bee, collected in Australia by Laurence PackerHere we have a representative of a subfamily of bees found only in Australia and nearby islands, although at least one has been introduced to a different continent (Africa) where it persisted long enough for bee collectors to find some.

From the northern hemisphere comes ... Panurginus. A common group of largely dark little bees, with the males, at times having yellow on their faces, in keeping with the general pattern of males having more yellow than females.

Paracolletes species, On and Off Bee, specimen collected in AustraliaThis species is unusually sexually dimorphic in color. The males are quite bright, as can be seen here, the females are what might be called the "null hypothesis" for bee coloration "“ brownish grey on the head and thorax with a black abdomen with white transverse hair bands.

This is picture 8 from a 12 picture invited series by Matt Buffington (matt.buffington@usda.gov) at the USDA Parastitic Hymentoptera group using specimens from the U.S. Natural History Museum Smithsonian. Matt uses a system very similar to ours to photograph and stack this super tiny wasp.

Why do you insist, Pilgrim, on planting your garden with geraniums, tea roses, and begonias? You could be planting your garden to Woodlands sunflowers and then you would have the opportunity to help out the uncommon and undoubtedly declining Paranthidium jugatorium.

Feeds Baby Oil. Yes, a subcult of the many bees of the world are those who, in addition to feeding their young pollen, feed them oil from plants that produce oil for that very purpose. Here is such a bee, a Paratetrapedia collected by Tim McMahon in Costa Rica. It has special hairs to transport the oil to the nest.

Pasites maculatus, White-spotted Red Cuckoo Bee, specimen collected by Ron McGinley in PakistanTaxonomists have given plenty of Red Cuckoo Bees names, 23 globally to be exact, but only the White-spotted Red Cuckoo Bee has received much attention beyond the usual cataloging.

The Carpenter bee flower. This is one of the passion flowers, Passiflora incarnata, designed to be pollinated by Carpenter bees which fit right in and are daubed by pollen (note the stigmas are those large white things ABOVE the stamens). Since each vine is self incompatible they have to get it right. Flower and photograph by Helen Lowe Metzman.