Anthidium manicatum, m, side, Middlesex Co, MA

Anthidium manicatum is an invasive bee that showed up sometime in the 19 eighties in North America. It is particularly fond of garden plants such as stachys and appears to largely be restricted to areas of human occupancy. The specimens come from Massachusetts, and I wish I could recall who gave them to me, but for now I have forgotten. Pictures were taken by Hannah Sutton. 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. USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.