Backyard and Beyond

This black bee was a real brawler, tackling each flower like a linebacker, rolling up and over the flower parts until it was upside-down.

Note the long opera-glove-like sleeves of pollen on the hind legs. These legs have more hair than the other two sets, and these pollen packs are rather larger than you see on most bees who do this (leaf cutter bees, for another example, store pollen on the underside of their abdomen); this and the antenna helped me identify this one. Two-spotted Long-horned Bee, Melissodes bimaculatus. It is supposed to be common in the east, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen/identified one. This is one of the solitary bee species, not social like the non-native honeybees or partially social like some bumblebees.

Over two hundred species of bees have been found in NYC, but honeybees and several species of bumblebees are the most commonly recognized. Yet when you look closer, there’s so much more going on. This one was all over the flowers outside my apartment building.