Small Bees (Minibees)

June 16, 2015

From the U.S. Geological Survey (USHS):

Small bees that don’t bother or sting us can remain unstudied despite their abundance. Our eyes can’t resolve difference in bees as small as these 2-5 mm Old World Minibees, thus their identification becomes microscope work for the specialist. 
Small bees can effectively use (and therefore pollinate) small flowers and it doesn’t take that much pollen to raise a Minibee’s young. Thus, across the world, the density of small bees often greatly exceeds that of the large bees we more often study.

So small is the unidentified Kyrgyzstani specimen seen in the photo below that it had to be flued to the side of an insect pin that in normally places through the body of a bee to hold it in place. The lovely wing patterns seen here are called “Wing Interference Patterns” and are created by the varying thicknesses of this insect’s thin wing membranes. Photo credit: Sam Droege, USGS.

Learn more at http://on.doi.gov/1EZJ26R

#PollinatorWeek #bees #macrophotography#pollinators