Bees and apple blossoms

kw: observations, bees

Thursday, April 15, was not only Tax Day, it was Pollination Day for my apple tree. It was warm, with little wind, and the wild bees were out in force. I also saw one honey bee, but just the one, in the half hour I spent watching and taking these photos.

I have scaled these to have the apple blossom size be about the same; on a 100 dpi monitor, each quarter of this pic is a little larger than life size.

Upper Left: A dark bee with yellow hairs, significantly smaller than a honey bee. Probably a sweat bee.

Upper Right: A bee with a bumble bee look, but the size of a honey bee.

Lower Left: A bumble bee.

Lower Right: A black mason bee. This one just got done mugging this bloom that was just opening. It spent about twenty seconds inside. It is honey bee size, or slightly smaller. You can see its large pollen baskets.

In addition to the four species shown here, there were two smaller species of dark-colored bee that were too quick to photograph. I didn't see any green colored bees, though I've seen them in past years.