A bee flew on to my bed and then kindly posed for me. Is it perhaps my first leaf cutter bee?
I wish I could tell you but I'm finding bee ID very hard. Step one though is always get a clear photo of the antennae so you can count the segments. Males have 13, females have 12. Once you know the gender it makes it much easier to start working out the rest but even then it's not easy for the majority of bees.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
A very compliant hoverfly in the greenhouse today. It sat washing its face on a coil of wire while I positioned it for the best light. I ran a high-pass filter over the photo to make the details pop a bit.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
Agreed @wild edges! I am always trying to identify the bumbles in my garden but I look at the picture guides and they could be one of many! They all look so similar, OK I can narrow it down by the colours of their bottoms (technical terminology there) but it still doesn't help that much.
I think I've finally stuck a name on this bee and you can see where the trouble comes from. The one good photo of the antennae showed that the one in focus was missing the tip so no good for counting. Luckily this bee collects pollen very visibly so we know it will be female anyway. The dark ginger hair should be fairly distinctive but it is almost bald now which makes you think it could something else as it doesn't match the species profile illustrations. The photo of the bum was lucky as it shows the remains of a tuft of ginger fur that shows this is The Early Mining Bee, also known as the orange-tailed mining bee (with the fairly horrible latin name Andrena haemorrhoa). Shoving a carpet beetle off the flower in this photo.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
This one I'm fairly sure is an orange-vented mason bee male. I had to catch it as it wouldn't sit still long enough for my auto-focus to keep up. I think I've seen the females around but they look almost exactly like leaf cutter bees so until I can get a better look I can't confirm. They close the nest off with pulped leaf material instead of mud though and I know I've had a few nests like that so they're definitely here. I hope to get lucky and see one finishing the nest which will confirm.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
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