lindy flower @redhead-veghead - Tumblr Blog

bee drawing in ink and watercolor

#scientific illustration #entomology #art #watercolor #redhead veghead #science #illustration #insects #insect illustration #my drawings #bombus #bee drawing #bee art #insect art

theskepticalwitch

How to Make a Flower Crown!

I made myself a flower crown today and I wanted to share it with you all. Flower Crowns are really awesome, and everyone deserves one.

I used the Weaving method, detailed below in the link provided! Here's a visual guide as well, if you're a visual learner like myself.

Do you know how to make a daisy chain or flower crown? It’s incredibly easy and so fun! There are several classic ways to make a flower cro

Platanthera blephariglottis (white fringed bog orchid)

#botany #orchid #native orchid #plants #white flower #long pond pa #hike pa #orchidaceae #nature #native flora

redhead-veghead

Bombus impatiens on Clematis

cedar-glade

@asgardian–angels so, I read through the tags on reblogs because many people have so much info to say or teach and don’t post them but just type them in tags. Im trash at Bee ID because i just started trying very recently (last week) so your comment about T2 tuft just taught me how to ID these bees so thanks. and honestly I would not be able to make out that from this image, I tired to zoom in and follow the contrast bend where the shadow is and I don’t think I can make out hair on T2 which makes me think its a B. impatiens captioned above but im also using a very old dell as my current set up from 2012 :) but maybe more can join in on the buzz of this post >:-)

https://mtcubacenter.org/plants/leather-flower/

B impatiens^

close look alike example of B. bimaculatus (black topped and T2 slightly tufted vs B. impatiens where t2 is not tufted and the thorax is not overtly black, only other way is to view face for Malar elongation according to what I could fid on the net.

T2 tuft on common melk weed

jewelweed/common eastern with no t2 tuft.

“two spotted with t2 tuft on Monarda fistulosa

vanc dwarf on an ericaceous lad with bee id diagram.

asgardian--angels

Hope you don’t mind me chiming in. While the photo is at an oblique angle it definitely appears to me that there is a yellow patch on T2 (second tergite). Hard to explain apart from ‘I’ve looked at several thousand bumblebees under the microscope and in photos’ haha. The photos you have in your reblog as examples aren’t all of B. bimaculatus - the first is B. griseocollis, the brown-belted bumblebee, whose T2 patch is quite distinctive in being much broader than bimaculatus and is usually a rusty or brown color.

The best ways to separate impatiens from bimaculatus are, as you said, 1) presence of a centrally-located (sometimes distinctly two-lobed) yellow patch on T2 vs all black in impatiens, 2) long malar space (aka a long face) in bimaculatus vs just ‘average’ in impatiens, and 3) a distinct black central circle of hair on the scutum (upper face of thorax) vs a diffuse grayish area in impatiens. Malar space is not often visible in the field, but can be distinguishable in photos if high resolution and at the right angle. However it usually isn’t needed for these particular species if the other features are visible (it can become more important for species like auricomus, pensylvanicus, and terricola that can look otherwise identical). Malar space specifically refers to the ratio of how long the distance is between the bottom of the eye and the midpoint of the mandible attachment to the width of the base of the mandible. ‘Long’ is longer than the base is wide, ‘equal’ or ‘average’ is equal, and ‘short’ is shorter than the mandible base is wide.

If you’d like to learn more about bumblebee ID, a good book is Bumble Bees of North America by Paul Williams et al. Impatiens, bimaculatus, and griseocollis are all extremely common in the eastern US, although impatiens is generally by far the most common.

(Always feel free to ask bee ID questions, I hope I can help!)

redhead-veghead

SO sorry for such a delayed response (sometimes I forget I post on here) but thank you so much for that info! I went through my camera roll to see if I had a clearer picture to show the coloring on T2 and I did! I was using the book The Bees in Your Backyard, pictures on Bugguide and I asked some hort people for help IDing before I posted. Thank you so much for your knowledge and input ; I just like to look at bees and occasionally try to ID them because I like to know what I'm looking at: I'll update the original post to reflect the correct name!

#novice #bee lover #learn