As part of our NSF TCN, Big Bee, the CU Entomology Section has begun 3D imaging bees! This short clip is a video of 142 angles of focus-stacked hi-res photographs (over 4,000 of them). We'll be stitching them together to render a 3D model of the bee, so stay tuned!

The Cylindropuntia cactus at the 30th St Greenhouse is a real magnet for Lithurgopsis apicalis, a cactus specialist! Notice the tubercles (tiny horns) on top of her head! There were dozens of females visiting flowers and foraging for pollen. I had seen these on Opuntia  while out on the plains, but the Cylindropuntia is from the southwest.  Apparently, our Opuntia specialist likes it too!

The things we do for love. The checkerspots were in need of some sunlight so I had to carry them outside since the greenhouse is currently being renovated. Luckily a little honey water to set the mood, some fresh air, and a couple hours of daylight is all it takes to ensure we get some happy couples!

Eroding banks such as these are often seen as an eye-sores or safety hazards but they also create nesting habitats for a diversity of ground-nesting bees, wasps, and their associated parasitoids. While erosional features such as these are temporary habitats in the long-run, the habitats they do create can be hugely important for local bee populations and they often attract large aggregations of nesting bees.  

Although the snow is still falling, the first pollinator heralds of spring have begun to appear. On a recent hike I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of this comma butterfly soaking up some sun. Along with the morning cloaks, these are some of the earliest butterflies you'll see in spring. This weekend also marked my first sighting of a Hunt's bumble bee and a blue orchard bee in town. 

People often ask me how to find ground-nesting bee nests. In reality I see nests in the ground all the time but most are very tiny and aggregations are fairly infrequently encountered. Here is a time-series of a Lasioglossum sp. female at the entrance of her nest, likely only 2-3 mm in diameter. She quickly saw off the more brightly colored male.

I observed a couple of two-spotted sunflower bees, Melissodes bimaculatus, foraging for pollen on this Floriani Red Flint corn in Boulder, CO. While it may seem strange, I observe bees foraging on corn and other grass for pollen fairly frequently. These could provide important resources if other host plants are scarce or may be used to supplement pollen provisions. These two bees returned repeatedly and filled their scopa up each time. You can easily see the yellow corn pollen packed onto their hind legs. 

The western bumble bee, Bombus occidentalis, is an uncommon visitor in Boulder. This one was spotted foraging on black berry flowers in the Shakespeare Garden at CU-Boulder.  This species is thought to be in decline in parts of its range so it's a welcomed sight just outside the Museum of Natural History!

This summer I'm working with Boulder County Parks and Open Space to document native bees along riparian areas impacted by the 2013 flood. One of our goals is to identify important floral resources for bees. Nearly three years post-flood, it's especially interesting to see how both the floral communities and the bees are returning to some of the most heavily impacted areas.

We're working with Alex Morphew, an undergraduate honors student at the University of Colorado to document patterns of native bee performance across agricultural regions of eastern Colorado. Above are some of the beautiful images we're capturing of the intricate cells constructed by female bees (and a wasp) that both highlight the complexity and beauty of these remarkable animals.

We have been very fortunate to have a very talented film maker help us document our research on the plains. Check out some of Travis' videos at the links below.

Spring has definitely arrived and with it some early season bees to our bee blocks. I caught up to this blue orchad bee, Osmia lignaria, as she brought in some late evening provisions to one of her cavities. You can see the mud she uses to cap off the nest in the hole above her. 

Occasionally, we find some very strange looking bees. These two series of photos are both of long-horned bees in the genus Melissodes that I asked Brian Lobbes to image. However, something is distinctly odd about their faces. Male long-horned bees usually have yellow faces and long antennae (hence their common name); but both of these bees have half yellow faces and one long antenna. In fact they are both male and female, or gynandromorphs. Gynandromorphy typically arises from a problem with chromosome segregation during mitosis and can lead to the organism having some cells that become male and other cells that become female. In the top specimen, the bee appears to be mostly female, with hairy legs to collect pollen but the right side of the face and antenna are male. In the lower specimen, the body is more male, lacking those bushy leg hairs, and with alternating female patches on the face: a dark right mandible, dark left face, and short (female) right antenna. So cool! 

As we identify all of our bees in the museum we're finding some really cool species. The native bee, Cemolobus ipomoeae, is a new species for Colorado and represents a big jump in the known distribution, as it was historically not found west of Missouri. It is also a specialist bee, feeding on morning-glories (Ipomea sp.). Hence it's specific epithet, ipomoeae. These images were taken by Brian Lobbes in the CU Entomology Collection.

We were extremely fortunate this year to have an undergraduate interested in photographing and filming some of our research, Travis Bildahl. I think his images speak for themselves.

If you've ever been driving down those back roads and seen some silly folks running around with nets, chances are they were entomologists. Netting is a very useful tool to look for bees that don't come to attractive traps. Given that bees are often small and super fast, you may see some netting high jinks alongside the roads so watch out!

Bees are pretty unique in that they are almost completely dependent on flowers to survive and reproduce, and a major part of the latter is due to pollen. Most bees provision pollen for their young and by sampling the pollen they carry we can gain a better understanding of the types of plants they use and the species most important to developing young. To help identify that pollen, we collect samples in the field and build a reference pollen collection to compare to samples back in the lab.

We're back for our final year of field work. Along with our bee and plant diversity surveys, this year we are also installing some custom bee nest boxes to see how many different cavity nesting solitary bees are on the plains. This is collaboration with the Museum of Natural History and The Bee's Needs Program. We placed similar bee houses along the Front Range and are curious to see what bees use them out on the high plains.