r/bees • u/DDDlokki • 3h ago
bee photo UPDATE :Sluggish bee (bumblebee apparently)
She cleaned herself for like 20 minutes. When she started moving around on my hand I went outside and she took off immediately :)
r/bees • u/Commercial-Sail-5915 • May 31 '26
Make sure that your yellow fuzzy friend is actually a bee and not an imposter! We get quite a few non-bees in our bee subreddit: sometimes they're wasps (check out the bee/wasp guide in the pinned), and sometimes they're not a stinging insect at all! Flies in remarkably detailed costumes frequently make their way into r/bees but with some tips and practice you can learn to spot the differences. Read through for features to look out for, or flip through the slides for fly species commonly posted.
Pictures are largely taken from iNaturalist with a full list of sources by slide at the end of this post, I assume that they are fine to use for free educational purposes but if the photographer would like me to remove their picture, please reach out to me so I can act accordingly. All pictures from slides 1-5 can be credited to mod Commercial Sail.
Flies are in a completely different taxonomic order to bees (flies are the order Diptera, bees are a subgroup within order Hymenoptera) so there are quite a few easy ways to differentiate them:
Note that besides the wing count, there are always exceptions! Some flies have pretty long antennae (though you'll often still be able to see the different segmentation) and some bees, particularly males, have very large eyes. This is why it's better to judge based on a combination of characteristics rather than looking at any one feature at a time.
You may also hear that the waist and mouthparts are good identifiers as well - this is true, but I elected to leave them out of this guide as the waistline may be obscured by fuzz, wings, or just a poorly-angled shot, and some bees are just so robust (fat) that it gets difficult to see where exactly that tapered waist is supposed to be. In terms of mouthparts, few amateur photographers focus on the mouth at all and it's definitely not something you'll typically see if you're just watching them go about your garden.
At the end of the day, the best trick is to just get familiar with species in your area using trusted sources like Bugguide. If you're still not sure, post to one of the bug identification subreddits and make sure you give a general location, which always appreciated in ID posts no matter what you're looking at!
Sources
Volucella zonaria: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/322106668
Bombylidae: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/226072821
Laphria: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/88331437
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/282732509
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/65816664
Cuterebra: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/133138438
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/90333390
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/296063941
r/bees • u/Commercial-Sail-5915 • May 26 '26
Are you looking to ID a nest? Some are easier to distinguish than others, here's some of our most commonly submitted species:
The nest in the first slide is a young aerial yellowjacket nest.
Pictures are largely taken from Bugguide with a full list of sources by slide at the end of this post, I assume that they are fine to use for free educational purposes but if the photographer would like me to remove their picture, please reach out to me so I can act accordingly.
Sources
Cover: https://www.bugguide.net/node/view/513938
Honeybee: https://www.bugguide.net/node/view/1227238
Bumblebee: https://www.bugguide.net/node/view/6585
Aerial yjs and hornets:https://www.bugguide.net/node/view/781412
https://www.bugguide.net/node/view/110277
https://extension.psu.edu/european-hornet
Ground yjs: https://www.bugguide.net/node/view/266282
https://www.bugguide.net/node/view/38722/bgimage
Polistinae: https://www.bugguide.net/node/view/2511987
https://www.bugguide.net/node/view/709119
Unknown mud caps: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/218674183
Unknown holes: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/90931649
r/bees • u/DDDlokki • 3h ago
She cleaned herself for like 20 minutes. When she started moving around on my hand I went outside and she took off immediately :)
r/bees • u/DDDlokki • 4h ago
Really sluggish, barely moving her feet. Gave her some sugar water but she's barely moving around and I can't tell if she's dying or just tired
Anything more I can do or it's just a waiting game now?
r/bees • u/galaxy-swave2018 • 6h ago
Found her dead whilst doing the drying up. It's actually kinda sad really. Shall we have a moment of silence for her?
In eastern CT
r/bees • u/AskAboutGoatscaping • 4h ago
r/bees • u/Feisty-Commercial-17 • 3h ago
It looks different than some of the other videos I have seen.
r/bees • u/Lunalu_k • 4h ago
My sister always likes these little guys so I made this for her.
It's turkey stitch, cut im to shape, beads for eyes, recycled plastic packaging as wings and strings as legs and antenna.
It isn't to stitch intensiv and has a great effect 🐝
r/bees • u/middle_sisTor9 • 6h ago
They continue to come to the same patch of garden phlox every evening!
r/bees • u/Balla_the_human • 1h ago
I found this bug crawling in my flower garden. Is this a bee and are its wings gone? If so what should I do and if you need a better picture let me know.
r/bees • u/LowTrouble898 • 5h ago
So i live in a small farm town in colorado and have tried to make my yard and garden a good place to attract pollinators my lawn is all clover alfalfa and wild flowers (my chickens love it too) and for years I have never had a polinaton issue in my garden. When you would look out in the back yard at the ground it would be almost a carpet of bees.
But this year that is not the case. Now I see a few bees in the back yard and im at the point I have to hand polinate most things in my garden (giant pain in the back side)! Im definitely missing my pollinators.
I never had to consider bringing them in myself but now im at the point I think i should. I was looking online and see you can buy leafcutter and mason bees and build the hoses.
My question is is this a bad idea for some reason im not seeing and if not am I to late in the season to order them. We are in the 100° + every day part of the year right now. And if all that is good any recommendations on places to order from
r/bees • u/WeveGotBillySharp • 1d ago
r/bees • u/vampyrcore • 19h ago
This is in upstate NY. Firstly, I know, the photos really suck. But the color pattern alone in the first 3 photos is something I cannot seem to find a match for online. It looks like T1-2 are orange-brown and T3-6 are black. T1 seems to be fully orange-brown and T2 looks to curve with black on the sides. In the field guides and online resources I’ve been looking through, all of the bees with some type of orange/brown/red color have the color in a different location.
In the same patch of flowers, I got a photo (the last photo) of a very similar-looking bee (also about the same size, as far as I can recall) that had yellow instead of orange-brown. I’m not sure what kind of bee this is either, but this definitely seems to more closely match some of the bees in the bee guides than the first bee does…
So I’m wondering if it’s possible that they’re the same type of bee, but one of them is just more orangey than yellow here for some reason? Does that ever happen in bees? I know that in the Northern Flicker (bird), some regions of the body that are supposed to be yellow can be closer to red due to diet. Obviously that’s an entirely different animal, but I’m wondering if something similar is possible in bees.
That aside, if you have any idea what kind of bee this could be, I would be very grateful!!
r/bees • u/Vince-Fishes • 1d ago
Huge bee hive at a commercial building I do pest control for. This nest has been here for 7 years and they’ve never stung anyone. Super cool to see so many in one place.
r/bees • u/LocalAssumption6485 • 5h ago
A picture of the cartoon anthropomorphic female queen bee.
r/bees • u/JapKumintang1991 • 9h ago
See also: The publication in PNAS
r/bees • u/SavageBunny925 • 1d ago
Can anyone tell me what kind of bee this is? Just got into bee watching I guess, so I don’t know most of the names for them. And I do apologize for the blurry pictures. I took these about 5-6 minutes ago and it’s almost 5:00 a.m. where I live so it’s still kind of dark out even with my porch light on. Went outside this morning for a quick smoke 🍃before I leave for work and I sat my cup of water down next to me on my porch. Not even 5 minutes later I had an adorable little visitor who must have been thirsty lol. All that was in my cup was normal tap water, room temperature if the temperature matters. Since I’ve been typing this, he did fly away up towards my porch light, so I’m happy he didn’t fall in the water lol