First Bees

 

Wednesday 3/18/2025

Gorgeous sunny day in SE Massachusetts, currently 52° on the rooftop.  Lazily venturing into the backyard this afternoon, I was surprised by dozens bees. They cruised within a few inches of the bare and leaf-strewn ground in search, I think of nest sites.  (From one anthill-like mound the head of a busily digging bee protruded. Much later there were other mounds.) The calling of spring peepers – which I heard Sunday behind Christ Congregational Church – and the nesting flight of unequal cellophane bees are the earliest native sign of spring I'm aware of.  (Crocus and grape hyacinth aren't native.)

To be sure these were the same "unequal cellophane bee" I began noticing a few years ago, I put my insect net together and snagged one.  That iNaturalist’s leading possibility was Unequal Cellophane Bee (Colletes ineaqualis) was good enough for me.  

(Amateur tip: an inexpensive net that folds small enough to fit in a daypack isn't expensive.  Getting close-up photos is a lot easier if you chill a critter in the fridge for ten minutes or so.  This one flew off unharmed after her brief star turn.)

It's a little difficult to see the many cruising bees.

My chilled bee got back on her feet, then recovered enough to fly off after a few more seconds.

My equipment.  The inexpensive net packs small but is slow to unfold,

so you won't catch an insect if it isn't already put together.  

This busy bee will soon begin laying eggs in individually provisioned chambers

walled off with cellophane-like material produced by her body.