Salty Thumb wrote:


(CbarRose) wrote in
:

I got a better look this morning and the bees are almost certainly
digger bees.

I thought you said that your neighbors said that the local beekeeper
said that they were bumblebees:

(CbarRose) wrote in
:

The first site you indicated above was one I'd visited earlier but I
just went back and reread the following which appears under the
Bumble Bee section:

snip

This is the scenario we're witnessing now, with many males flying
around the entrance. My neighbors have summoned, through the advice of
the township, a local beekeeper, who confirms the identification. We


Yup, he did, but he was hesitant at first, so I guess we can assume his area of
knowledge is limited to honeybees (and he said as much). I was going by the
behavior and not the description, because, as I noted later, they didn't seem
fuzzy enough to be bumble bees. (I'm learning all this stuff as I go along, of
course!) According to something I just read at a website, there are over 900
species of digger bees in North America, so appearance must vary.



(CbarRose) wrote in
:

Yellow fuzzy thorax with a dark spot in the midpart of the back; black
head; black abdomen with (I think I can see) a yellow first segment

I doesn's seem to match the digger bee picture in the link provided by
sed5555 ... shiny green non-spotted thorax, head hard to tell but looks

greenish, does have yellow segment.

That picture seemed a bit too sketchy (literally) to rely on.


Is it a carpenter bee? http://www.prokillpestcontrol.biz/bees.htm
They have a dark spot on the thorax and looks like it might have a yellow

thin segment.

Back to the drawing board on that one. I've found numerous different
descriptions and photos of carpenter bees.. Some look somewhat like the bees in
question, some not. Behavior, however, seems dissimilar, but am not ruling
them out.


Wow, searching for pictures ... there are an awful lot of kids, pets and

Autobots masquerading as bumblebees.


Yes, it's certainly been quite a trek through masses of not-too-fabulous photos
(and lots of cutesy things).

Thanks, Salty. Looks like this ain't over yet!

Carol