I'm looking at all of the bee pictures and suddenly it dawns on me that many of those latest photos show them to have hairless noses, or the area below the eyes? I've never noticed that before. Do bees lose their face hair? Wondering if they seasonally shed or molt like other creatures or what is going on?

Drinking buddies...

wildflowers said:I'm looking at all of the bee pictures and suddenly it dawns on me that many of those latest photos show them to have hairless noses, or the area below the eyes? I've never noticed that before. Do bees lose their face hair? Wondering if they seasonally shed or molt like other creatures or what is going on?

Perhaps a different species? Robert's bee photos of 12 October have hairy noses, but not those of 15th. (Unless the bee barber visited during the interim... )

wildflowers said:I'm looking at all of the bee pictures and suddenly it dawns on me that many of those latest photos show them to have hairless noses, or the area below the eyes? I've never noticed that before. Do bees lose their face hair? Wondering if they seasonally shed or molt like other creatures or what is going on?

it has everything to do with what kind of bee they are--remember there are some tens of thousands of bee species--some have facial hair and some don't, also within a specie there can be differences between male and female
they do not shed or molt, although sometimes they can lose hair for other reasons like parasites or repetitive friction
or yeah, what Mika just said, while I was distracted looking at beeface image search--wow, there are some way cool photos to get lost in...

Thanks for clearing up the bee question. The white just stood out today, I don't know why I've never noticed that before.

This bee is a new one for me. It was sipping on the Mejorana salvia. Very large, 'neck' like a body -builder...and fast! I did some research and the closest identification I found was Xylocopa. But I'd appreciate a proper I.D. from those who are better informed. Thanks in advance.

He's pretty! Definitely some kind of carpenter bee.

Christine

Hopefully someone else will give a more specific ID.

Kinda looks like X. mexicanorum to me --but I'm limited currently to this mobile device and can't see and search very well, so no promises
Pretty bee and nice photos Char!

Dirt.

wildflowers said:Thanks for clearing up the bee question. The white just stood out today, I don't know why I've never noticed that before.

I'm sure it was just the outstanding photos of whitebeeface

Could your blue bee be an Osmia lignaria, commonly known as the orchard mason bee or blue orchard bee?

The links below have some info on them:

http://www.pestnet.com/bees/bl...

http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowe...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Looks far too big and shiny aka hairless for Osmia.
How big was it Char?

Big. Really big. Not blue, but black. It was a massive bee.
Maybe it will return tomorrow and I can get better photos. There was a breeze today; so between the bee flitting and the plants waving, I was getting a bit dizzy just trying to focus the camera.
I hope I have another chance.

Prompted by dirtdorphins and GrammaChar comments, I did a bit more scouting on the internet. The first two links cover the Xylocopa-mexicanorum:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/...

http://www.inaturalist.org/tax...

The next two links cover the Xylocopa-micans:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/...

http://www.inaturalist.org/tax...

The last contains a discussion of carpenter bees, but also has an excellent picture at the start of a Xylocopa-micans, which looks rather close to the bee in GrammaChar's images.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Cool lizards!

I am not sure on GrammaChar's bee ID..but research from Dr. John Ascher will be a confident source. Dr. Ascher is one of the worlds top bee specialist, if not "the" top specialist.

This whole "bee" thing is somewhat new to me. I don't know how I got to be this old without knowing much about pollinators other than honey bees and bumble bees. Now I feel like I've discovered a whole new world of native bees. And it's huge! I'll never learn even a fraction of them, but it's fascinating.
Had another visitor yesterday - with a spot.





And a 'regular' bee.



Mama Lynx spider is still tending her young. Just read that there could be up to 800 of them, but they're too tiny to count. Also learned that the mother spider can shoot venom up to a foot. I'm going to stay out of range...





And another visitor.



Today's bee butt.

could also be californica

here are some id pages
http://www.discoverlife.org/mp...
http://www.discoverlife.org/mp...
http://www.discoverlife.org/mp...

in any event, it is some kinda Xylocopa