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Eastern carpenter bee
A large bee with a fuzzy thorax can look like a bumble bee from above. Check the back end. The eastern carpenter bee’s abdomen is mostly shiny black and nearly bare. Females dig round tunnels in wood for their nests. A neat hole and fresh sawdust on or below a wooden surface can be another clue.
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Bombus impatiens
Common eastern bumble bee
Look for a pale band of hair on the first segment of the abdomen, just behind the waist, with the rest of the abdomen usually black. The furry abdomen helps distinguish it from a large carpenter bee. A queen starts a colony in a sheltered cavity, and her workers visit flowers as the colony grows.
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Osmia lignaria
Blue orchard bee
Watch spring flowers for a stout bee with a dark metallic blue body. A female blue orchard bee uses an existing hole or hollow stem. She divides the space into small cells with mud, leaving pollen and nectar for each offspring. The blue color gets you to a group of lookalikes, and nesting material gives you another clue.
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Peponapis pruinosa
Squash bee
Check open squash or pumpkin flowers early in the day. These bees can plunge straight into a blossom and disappear from view. The females gather the pollen they feed to their young from squash and closely related plants. The nest can be right under the crop, in a tunnel in the soil.
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Augochlora pura
Pure green sweat bee
This shiny green bee has a nesting habit that helps separate it from many green lookalikes. In eastern North America, it makes its nest in decaying wood. You may see the adult on a flower, but the rotting bark or log is where to look for signs of its nest.
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Megachile pugnata
Sunflower leafcutter bee
Watch sunflowers and other flowers in the daisy family. Females gather pollen there, with brushes under the abdomen that can give the belly a yellow dusting. In a hollow stem or other existing cavity, a female uses cut leaves as part of the partitions between the cells for her young.
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Bombus vosnesenskii
Yellow-faced bumble bee
On the West Coast, look for yellow hairs on the face and at the front of the thorax. Queens and workers also have a yellow band well back on an otherwise dark abdomen. A view from the front and the side gives you a better chance of seeing the whole pattern.
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Andrena erigeniae
Spring beauty bee
Look close to the ground when spring beauties open in the spring. The little mining bee that shares their name visits their pale striped flowers, a better place to start looking than a random patch of blooms. It belongs to a group of bees that dig nests in the soil.
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Agapostemon
Metallic green sweat bees
Many sweat bees are small and dark, but these often catch the light. In this group, a male can have a bright green head and thorax with a black-and-yellow striped abdomen. Many females are green much farther back. Look for nests in the ground, where some species share an entrance.
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Ceratina
Small carpenter bees
These are tiny, often shiny bluish-green or dark bees. The place to look for them is the broken end of a dead stem. A female can dig into the soft pith inside rose, sumac, or elder and make room for her offspring. That small tunnel can be easier to spot than the bee.
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Hylaeus (bee)
Yellow-faced bees
Look for short hairs and pale markings on the face of a very small black bee. Males of many species have larger pale patches, which can look like a mask. The females carry pollen internally. That helps explain why you may see one feeding without the visible load that gives away many other bees.
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Colletes
Cellophane bees
Look at the face from the front. The eyes angle inward toward the mouth, giving the face a tapered, almost heart-shaped look. These bees line the cells of their soil nests with a thin film. Closely spaced entrances can belong to different solitary females.
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Melissodes bimaculatus
Two-spotted longhorn bee
The pale marks at the base of the black abdomen are the spots in the name. Males have long antennae that make the group easier to recognize. In the eastern United States you can look for these bees on flowers. Females dig in the ground, including on banks and slopes.
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Nomada
Nomad bees
A slim, wasp-like bee can be a nomad bee. Females in this group have no special hairs for hauling pollen to a nest of their own. Many lay their eggs in a mining bee’s nest instead, where their young use the food the other bee gathered. Adults still visit flowers for nectar.
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