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Researchers take advantage of photography technology developed by the U.S. Army to capture beautiful portraits of bees native to North America.

Photography by Sam Droege, USGS

source

These photos were used in a wonderful feature in National Geographic about Same Droege and the USGS bee lab.

There are 4,000 species of North American bees living north of Mexico, says Sam Droege, head of the bee inventory and monitoring program at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Only 40 of them are introduced species, including the European honeybee.

Most of the natives are overlooked because “a lot of them are super tiny,” Droege says. “The bulk of the bees in the area are about half the size of a honeybee.”

The native species also go unnoticed because they don’t sting, he adds. They quietly go about their business gathering pollen from flowers in gardens, near sand dunes, or on the edges of parks.

Droege and colleagues began to inventory all the bee species in North America in 2001. This was partly because the insects are so important to the agriculture industry.

“Almost all the fruits and nuts, and a lot of the vegetable varieties, that we eat require some insect—usually bees—for pollination,” he explains.

Knowing how bee populations are faring is important when monitoring the health of those urban and otherwise vulnerable environments. 

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