Today in my garden I found a bee that had Blueish green stripes and black body. I felt it quite unique.
I am confused which specie of bee this is as I know three species of bees that have similar colour combination.
So my question is whats the difference between Blue Green Orchard Bee ; Orchard Manson bee and Blue - Black Green Sweat Bee ?
I see you have it up as an observation, so you’ll probably get an answer there.
I’m not up Asian Bees, but this one has pollen collecting hairs on the legs so it isn’t a Mason, and it looks hairy with a large head, so I don’t think it’s a Sweat Bee, consider Anthophorini.
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Just as a side note, the forum isn’t generally for questions about observations (we’re encouraged to keep those to iNat).The Nature Talk sections guidelines say
“This category is a catch-all for nature-related topics that aren’t directly related to iNaturalist. It’s not a place to get help with identifying your nature observations (that’s what iNaturalist itself is for!).”
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Looks like the question was resolved to subgenus on iNaturalist which can often be as far is can be with even relatively detailed images of bees. Consider closing topic?
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At a general level:
- Mason bees are in the Megachilidae family (tribe Osmini) and carry pollen on the underside of abdomen. They tend to nest in holes in wood.
- Sweat bees are in the Halictidae family and carry pollen on their legs with small scopa. They tend to nest underground.
- Digger bees (the one in this picture) are in the Apidae family (tribe Anthophorini) and carry pollen on their legs with large scopa. They nest underground and are much larger and hairier than sweat and mason bees (who often have a metallic head and thorax).
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See above - best to discuss observations on iNaturalist itself. The side discussion about the word “specie” was moved to its own topic.