Favoritos de zportman

Watched this bee excavating pith from the stalk of a live goldenrod. Concave gray-tipped T6 and deep tergal grooves raise intriguing possibility of M. montivaga. Will monitor and see if she brings leaves or petals back to nest!

Update: my wife and I saw a bee exiting this hole the following day. That bee is shown here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/86512511

Dozens of these in a large sandy area flying close to the ground. The area was scattered with holes in the sand, both level with the ground and in cones. Appeared they could have recently emerged from these borrows.

I took some large elderberry (Sambucus) branches that were laying on the ground since last fall, cut them to 2-3 ft. lengths, stuck them in the ground and within a week bees were excavating tunnels in the pithy centers (this branch is only 3/8 inch diameter, 11 inches off the ground to the top). Too hairy for Ceratina, lacks Hylaeus markings, pretty hairy for Lasioglossum too, but the mandible area has some orangish coloration, so Osmia is my best guess. Thanks to Michael Mesler for the suggestion.

Took pictures of a few Red-belted bumblebees in Spotted Knapweed along path including light colored ones like this one that I hadn't seen before, so I took lots of pictures of it. At home when cropping looks like it has a rusty patch to me with certain light and dark band between wings. Surveyed a restored regional park prairie field for about two hours, taking pictures of each bumblebee + flower combination and counting them, and taking pictures of any interesting bumblebees. Bee Balm, Hyssop, Tickseed, Sunflowers (Ox Eye?) and Spotted Knapweed were the main flowers in the native grasses. Common Eastern and Red-belted were the main bumblebees. Typical Minnesota summer weather at about 85F with a breeze and sun.