#sam droege

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Cicindela Scutellaris - Tiger Beetle

Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Sam Droege / USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab

[aesthesiamag]

Sam Droege -  Macro Bee Portraits by  and the USGS Bee Inventory

The USGS Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Program designs and develops large and small scale surveys for native bees. As part of that program we also develop identification tools and keys for native bee species. One aspect of creating those tools is creating accurate and detailed pictures of native bees and the plants and insects they interact with.

[horticulturish]

USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab

Explore USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab's 4,226 photos on Flickr!

Sometimes when I get stressed and overwhelmed at work, I load the USGS Bee gallery and look through it at all the sweet fuzzy children.  Productive? Not really, but if my boss startles me with an interruption at least it looks like it would be adjacent to something I’m working on. 

[fishstickmonkey]

Augochloropsis anonyma

M, face, Florida, Miami-Dade County_2013-03-20-14.18.15 ZS PMax

USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab

[usgsbiml]

Andrena dunningi.  

A large dark Andrena. 

This lovely female, in fresh plumage, is relatively easy to identify simply by the orange brown color of its body hairs along with the nearly black hairs located on its hind legs which it uses to carry pollen to its nest. However, after it's been out in the sun for several weeks it can also turn the same off-white coloration that most of the other Andrena bees have in this group. This is a bee of tree flowers. In particular, it favors Willows, but can be found on a wide variety of spring blooming woody plants, though seemingly avoiding the heath family, which has its own specialists. This bee was photographed by Sue Boo and collected in Harford County Maryland.

All original pictures completely public domain and available at our Flickr site: https://www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/

Photography Information: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-_yvIsucOY

Follow us on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/usgsbiml/

Download our free field guide to the genera of bees:

http://bio2.elmira.edu/fieldbio/beesofmarylandbookversion1.pdf

Public Bee Servant, sam droege

[beekeepingbuzz]

Did you know bees could be purple?

For many of us, conjuring the image of a bee involves yellow stripes and black stripes. But did you know bees could be purple?

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Scolia bicinta (wasp)

Cape Cod National Seashore, Massachusetts

Sam Droege / USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab

[usgsbiml]

Number 19 in our series of postings and part of our CAMPAIGN TO KNOW YOUR WILD BEES. 

Here we illuminate the problem that many gardeners face… What do I plant? Weeds and other garden plants sometimes attract tons of bees, is this helpful? Well, it is helpful in that many bees come to these plants to forage on pollen and even the specialist bees will come to for the quick energy that nectar provides . However, similar to birdfeeders, most of these plants are feeding the bees that are doing quite well; the sparrow and pigeon bees if you will. Native plants, on the other hand, have had millions of years to synchronize with the local wild bee fauna. As such, there's a great deal of specialization and general community membership that goes beyond bees, these are plants that have numerous associations with other native denizens of our wild scapes, other insects, bacteria, fungi and interplay with plant communities that foster many uncommon and rare species. Without these native plants a good deal of our native bees would disappear and bringing with them would be many other plants and animals. So, it makes most sense to start your gardens with native plants and backfill with some of the traditional plants that you will love.