Sunday, February 7, 2010

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I found this specimen on St. Mark's NWR property on Jan 23 2010 in sandhill habitat and did not collect it. It's a female of Agapostemon splendens, which is a halictid bee that are sometimes called sweat bees. This particular genus may be called metallic green bees. These are solitary bees that burrow in the ground, unlike honey bees, which most people are familiar with. These bees, and many others, do not produce appreciable amounts of honey. Honey bees are not native to the US, whereas this bee is. There is some evidence that exotic honey bees may compete with native bees like this when honey bees are present in large enough numbers. See the links for more information about FL bees or more images of this specimen. http://teach.valdosta.edu/jbpascar/Intro.htm http://bugguide.net/node/view/366537

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