The Cosmos and The Bee

The name of my new Pub.  No, not really.   ;)  (Oh, and check out my back blip....it's cute.  I think so, anyway. )


First of all:  IT RAINED!  It's a warmish and a bit humid, but a comfortable warmth and the rain is very welcome.  Heat will be returning and moving up to over 90F by midweek.  Yikes.

I do hope I am right as to what this little bee is.  I remember looking it up last summer because I'd never really looked at all the insects that come to flowers as much as I did last summer when our flowers were all in bloom.  My aunt and my cousins, and my cousin's granddaughter are due any minute.  We are going to visit, and I'm going to help with a genealogy matter, and then PIZZA.  And they like Round Table, which will be change of pace for us, because we usually go cheap and get Papa Murphy's take and bake pizza.  

Melissodes spp. are small to medium sized bees, ranging from 7.5 to 18 mm long. They are robust with fuzzy yellow hairs and conspicuous hairy legs. The front part of the female's face is usually yellow. Like most bees in the tribe Eucerini, males have long antennae. Males are long-bodied, while females have short antennae and are round-bodied. These bees are restricted to the New World.

Melissodes spp are generally solitary bees. Solitary bees usually build and live in individual nests rather than in a hive or with a colony of bees, while social or communal bees do live colonially in hives or bee communities.