Bob Patterson's
Entomology Hobby Page

Digital Photos from My Garden
and elsewhere


Bees, Wasps & Hornets
with a few bee-like flies, etc.




Bees, wasps and hornets come in a bewildering variety of shapes, colors and sizes. Add to that the numerous flies that mimic or imitate them in some manner. The one thing they all have in common is the instinctive respect they get from you. Buzzzzzz, back off, bozo! I've been stung just one time in the garden, when I was pruning a spreading juniper that covers part of a large flowerbed. I learned that a species of small bee had a ground nest under that thing. Ouch! A few weeks later one of my granddaughters was skipping along on the large stones bordering that flowerbed and she got it too. Ouch!, tears, hugs. She forgave me for not warning her, but no more skipping in the garden for her! See the hitchhiker? Read on.


I count  20  species on this page, not including the Hitchhiker.
  Black-and-white banded wasp and bee   This is not the same species and this one Flies imitate this The Hitchhiker
Beware oviposters Giant Hornet   These wasps nest in my toolshed. We get along. Yellow-footed Wasp blank for now    
    Many flies imitate bee and wasp coloration. But note two wings and shape of eyes and antennae
Reminds me of a semi with tandem trailers
Note the huge eyes, abdominal hair
    These two are a larger, different species. Look at the smaller eyes, and hairless abdomen
Fat city. Note the pollen basket on hind leg.
A Potter Wasp. They love the Sedum
A wasp that flies mimic. But gold antennae?
        Nothing on the wasp's abdomen. Oops! a hitchhiker landed, flattened out. Now it's up and walking. See enlargement at top of page. A parasitic wasp?
    A little excitement during nighttime moth photography sessions. I never know what to expect.
Color coordinated antennae and spectacles.
Legs and yellow spot look like species above.

In most cases I will not even try to determine specific names for the critters on this page. I'd need several monographs, careful measurements and a microscope to identify many of them. I'm happy just noting the color and pattern differences so that I can say "this species is not duplicated on this page." There are many Potter Wasps. That is more of a generic name for a group of wasps than for an individual species. Ditto for bumblebees, etc.

After next season (I won't have much time to post new photos during the busy garden season) I will try to group the yellow-and-black insects so that the variety of patterns will be easier to see and distinguish between.

Twenty species in a month late in the year. Wow!

Geez, they even come in metallic colors. Weird.