#apoidea

Love is in the air!

I wish I spoke bee so I could tell her how much I love her and hope she has a good day

image by sylvester_k

They are all native bees of America that do not make honey, wax, or hives. These include mining bees, mason bees, leafcutter bees, sweat bees, carpenter bees & cuckoo bees. Most of these bees are solitary, so in terms of a queen, she's her own queen, provisioning her own offspring, with 70% of them building their own nests underground in sandy soil, in bare patches, in lawns (I've seen some), in cemetery grounds & on road edges. The rest nest in hollow stems, abandoned beetle holes, rotting wood, snail shells, or cracks in stone. Females can sting, but the stings are extremely gentle. And because their stingers are not barbed, like bumblebees or honeybees, they do not die after stinging. These species do have males, but they are never at the nest. Their sole role is in reproduction. Native bees' key ecological role is to pollinate, & they are far more efficient than honeybees for many crops. Native bees evolved with North American plants for millions of years, making them the backbone of U.S. ecosystems.

02/01/23

this very polite little gal (Bombus impatiens) landed on me while I was on a hike yesterday. she landed on my shirt, looking a bit sluggish, so I decided to (gently) scoop her onto my hand to give her an opportunity to drink a bit of my sweat before relocating her to a flower, where she promptly got lost in the sauce. while reviewing the photos for iNat, I realized there was something on her leg. I'm not too adept with bumblebees and their various parasites; does anyone know what that is? for all I know, it could just be a clump of pollen, but I've never heard of pollen pants being asymmetrical. TIA!

Unknown Sweat Bee (subgenus Austronomia), April '24.