testing a skeet here

for whatever reason I keep getting kicked on desktop and laptop

Oh bsky never change

The bottom half of the drawing in the previous post, showing Andrena specialist on spring beauty and trout lily, then a focused section on colletes inaequalis

Bbbbbbbbbbbbees

A crop of a drawing in progress that is mostly illustrating a variety of Andrena mining bees, "often a black bug in a fur coat". Includes specialists and generalists

Drawing my way through march/april native bees and it's almost may 🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲

The bottom half of the drawing in the previous post, showing Andrena specialist on spring beauty and trout lily, then a focused section on colletes inaequalis

Bbbbbbbbbbbbees

Hell yeah it is! It's an honor 🙏

A lady in a raincoat clutches for plants next to a sign that says these plants feed bees

Lots of plants and a stack of Philly biodiversity scenes and a sign that has a bunch of insects and plants on it illustrated

Giving out native plants at our Native Plant Extravaganza in Port Richmond’s Campbell Square Park!

We planted about 75 plugs and distributed an additional 75 to neighbors for their backyards and planters.

A crop of a drawing in progress that is mostly illustrating a variety of Andrena mining bees, "often a black bug in a fur coat". Includes specialists and generalists

Drawing my way through march/april native bees and it's almost may 🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲

Drawing in progress of multiple andrenidae and their traits, with inaturalist open in the next window

BEEES!

(I'm going to bed I swear)

Drawing in progress of multiple andrenidae and their traits, with inaturalist open in the next window

BEEES!

(I'm going to bed I swear)

A while hand holding the flower spike of Ohio buckeye

Aesculus glabra in early bloom and not a single bumble. I guess the ladies have declared 45 degrees F is too damn cold

Boo

like are you kidding me what even is that

sentient lint ball, i love you

a bee fly poking around a flower of a cutleaf toothwort. the bee fly has long spindly legs, two cocked askew; it's beating its wings in a furious blur; its long straight snout is half its body length; it's covered in a coat of yellowish brown fuzz. the flower has four white petals (two visible) set in a light green calyx. a couple stamens can be seen popping out of the flower; they have white filaments and light yellow anthers. one of the toothworts's linear leaf lobes rises diagonally in the background.

😍

I dare anyone not to giggle at them

I love when they just pause mid-air to say "hey"

a sentient fluffball with wings floats above a spring beauty with a long snoot jammed into the flower. Loud slurping noises are assumed

is that a cat's cheap toy mouse? no! it is a silly little beefly, a golden, fuzzy little guy with toothpick legs and a looooong snoot

everything is awful

but at least we get to live in a world with bee flies
look at these stupid muppets, i love them

I can't decide if I should not wear it so they aren't wasting energy charging at my head.... or hooking up my headmount camera and catching video of the bee-charges

What's funny is I own about four of these & have owned them for years, but have never been big on spring bumblebees before.

fat white woman holding up a camera, wearing a yellow headband with white flowers

We've noticed, working with native lawn alternatives, that a lot of the short spring bloomers are yellow flowers, or white flowers w/ yellow centers. We've wondered if bumblebee queens are particularly attracted to them.

Turns out, wearing a yellow & white floral headband? Attracts queens

the classic "do i want to be Her or do i want to romance Her?" challenge

Not coincidentally, Dupage preserves went ham on all their prairies with the bush hog this winter. It’s a shrub massacre

I get it but also

Haven’t been able to find any around! I’ve been looking!

A screenshot of WeatherBug showing its 77 degrees F

If this restored prairie was exclusively native species, there would be nothing for bees to eat right now. The only things in bloom are callery pears, ground ivy, and dandelions

I don’t know how to feel about this. We’re out of sync with the natives because it’s early!

Holy shit is EIGHTY???

Well.. after all that, I forgot how many callery pears are here too. Fuck

1957 aerial remnants overlapped with current woods, shown here with green blocky shapes

Those green blocky shapes from the previous image are overlaid on top of an inat map of mertensia observations, clearly overlapping in spots.

Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virgnica) usually show up in remnant woods in the area, so overlapping current woods w/ the woods of the 1950s should show us what woods are old enough to be bee-friendly

Comparing to iNat for a groundtruth agrees, these are good places to go looking. Mission accepted!

Research suggests bees can fly around 1.8mi in 77-81 degree F days, and the date I saw the bee was ~81-82 degrees F

a two part image: 1 - A google aerial showing where current woods are within the 2mi radius 2 - a 1957 aerial showing where woods were present

Rusty-patched bumblebee queens should be up & they tend to congregate around virginia bluebells

I know there's a population here, but have only seen them in the summer. How can I find the queen right now?

Enter: The Map Challenge!
We have a max 2mi radius + specific areas that could have bluebells

This is the real purpose of photography. I still struggle to reliably id them on the wing! It’s only after I get home and have a good look at photos that I know for sure who I got

omg i always have this pdf open in a tab. I think bumblebees are really inconsiderate because they have so many different outfits for each species. Ridiculous!

www.xerces.org/sites/defaul...

osmia lignaria, the blue raspberry bee, with a round butt

an osmia bucephala i saw today, which is "what the fuck is wrong with that bumblebee?"

osmia comes in flavors: root beer, blue raspberry, and "what the fuck is wrong with that bumblebee?"

a cute round brown bee with a big round butt

a cute brown bee with a big round butt

WAIT i figured it out.

Osmia butts look like rootbeer barrel candy

this goddamn bee ignored all the prairie smoke *I* planted and went for the creeping charlie instead, are you kidding me

I’m a little bit competitive and if someone beats me on inat…

Seriously considering making the 45 minute drive to work on the weekend because the rusty patch queen is probably out