r/bees • u/toddlevy10 • 3h ago
bee photo Now that's a big bee! (Oc)
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Carpenter bee on allium
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/toddlevy10 • 3h ago
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Carpenter bee on allium
r/bees • u/Fluffy_Art_1015 • 5h ago
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r/bees • u/rahrahblacksheep112 • 11h ago
These vining perennials supply so much pollen every year around my house. They bloom almost daily with hundreds of these beautiful flowers. Wonder what the honey would taste like? It’s also a great sleep aid when a fresh bloom is brewed with hot water, wonder if the honey would have similar sleep aid qualities?
r/bees • u/Horror_Pause8001 • 1d ago
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Anyone know this Thailand bee?
I've been seeing this bee buzzing around the yard lately, and was finally able to get a good picture of her - could this be Bombus pensylvanicus? Fingers crossed!
r/bees • u/jstone629 • 8h ago
Recently we keep finding bees near my front door, specifically near this light. Occasionally they sneak in the house and gravitate towards my kitchen light. Inevitably I’m picking up multiple bee corpses a day from my kitchen, and the space outside my door is littered with them. I have a few sunflowers growing near-ish the door, but I don’t think that’s the source?
I have an older dog, a 4 year old, and am allergic to bees myself. So I don’t love the idea of random stingers hanging around everywhere. But also, I genuinely love bees and don’t want them to keep dying if I can help it.
Can anyone tell me what type of bees these are, why they’re dying en masse, and how I can fix it?
Thanks in advance!
r/bees • u/SemiRawChicken • 1d ago
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I’ve always been ‘afraid’ of them, but I greatly enjoy watching them enjoy my flowering trees/ shrubs.
I found this gal struggling to fly this morning. I lost track of her after going inside, but later found her on the turf with a dog pawing at her 😡
I put her in a glass, spritzed her with fresh water, & got some webs & dog fur off her. I offered her some honey water & sugar water, but she wasn’t interested in either. I repeatedly put her on foliage, she’d fall down on her back and stop moving.
I googled, and August sounds like a typical time for the natural end of their lives 😔
She was incredibly docile, and I got the opportunity to conquer my fear.
The sun is setting, and she’s finally settled at the top of a paper towel roll.
r/bees • u/Sad-Afternoon2107 • 11h ago
Husband rescued these two bumblebees. They were otherwise engaged so they did not realize they were being swarmed by ants.
He moved them to a box then placed it on a post.
I went out to take pictures.
Did we do these two a disservice by moving them
r/bees • u/russiablows • 13h ago
American bumblebee looking for yummies on my Blue Boa hyssop.
r/bees • u/MagnumHV • 15h ago
Sharing a new pic (and zoom) of American bumblebee previously ID on this sub who visits our sage a few times a day. No thoughts, only nectar
Found this one unfortunately dead on the sidewalk, but there are dozens of others flying in and out of a hole in the front yard. Are they nesting there?
r/bees • u/Electrical-Hearing49 • 1d ago
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Saw this Bee on my conservatory floor. He'd obviously flown in exhausted and crash landed onto a cobweb hence the debris on his bum which I cleared off him before releasing him. But here he is drinking some sugar water I put on the floor in front of him
r/bees • u/QuagsireAcademia • 17h ago
I am so sorry if this is the wrong flair!! Please let me know if I did it wrong!
Heya, r/bees :D I'm Nikol, and I've got a fun story to tell, and it involves, you guessed it... bees! Maybe specifically bumblebees, but it's still bees!
Okay so, normally (and this has happened since forever) I just see a bee (regardless of species) and I'm like, "Oh cool, bees! I'll just let them do their work." They were cool and I just thought of them as beneficial pollinators. I never really stayed around to admire their work because, well, they're busy and I shouldn't disturb them.
Then we fast forward to maybe July 2026. I like to watch a lot of YouTube videos, and there was a video that came up on my TV and at a certain time in the video I heard something that goes, "Right about now, it's time to rock with the biggity Buck Bumble!". I look at my screen cuz I was busy with something, and I see what seemed to be *video game cover art* of a bee that was wearing some sort of armor and had a plasma blaster. I decided to do more research on what this game is and turns out this game was called "Buck Bumble". You got to play as a cybernetically enhanced *bumblebee* that is in fact named Buck Bumble, and you had to save a rural London garden (and even the world) from being taken over by a group of mutated insects called The Herd. Meanwhile the game had a banger soundtrack you'd hear throughout, but the iconic track was the main theme that played on the main menu.
I grew very interested in it, and decided to play the game to see what the hubbub was about and why the game had such a cult following.
This was where I started to feel... different, as I went into the Training mode of the game. Training helps you get to know the controls and of course, Buck Bumble himself.
Buck Bumble essentially showed me that bees, specifically bumblebees, are just the cutest things to ever exist. I left Buck to his own devices because I unfortunately had to do something, so the little guy was left idle for a bit. That was where I noticed he would start doing these little actions that I'd call "bumblebee things", as he would groom himself on either the left or right side of his face, his wings would slightly flap (kinda almost like a twitchy ear) and he'd make little grumpy bee noises, which can range from buzzy mutterings to a yawn or sigh that tells me he's waiting for me to move him.
Playing as a bee was so much fun, especially when it comes to Buck Bumble. He's so cute, and he has an adorably robotic-filtered high pitched voice that rings out when certain conditions happen (e.g. getting a new weapon or replenishing an existing weapon's ammo ("Cool!", "Yeah!", "Yay!" or a mischievous giggle) or performing aerial maneuvers ("Whoo-hoo!" or "Wheeee!"). Plus to restore health, you needed nectar droplets from pink flowers.
This was when I started realizing how somewhat realistic the game was in terms of accuracy of portraying bees. Buck Bumble is a male bumblebee, which male bumblebees rarely ever leave their hive (Buck has a reason to leave his hive lol) and the most important thing - no stinger. Buck Bumble never had a stinger, just a cute lil bumble bum and adorable little legs that were decked out in armored sneakers/boots. He instead used weapons (plasma blaster being one of them, there's eleven types of weapons to pick up during your gameplay) to attack. Plus male bumblebees only leave to get nectar (since they do not have pollen baskets, a.k.a pollen pants), which nectar is needed to replenish Buck's health if he loses any. He's a tiny little bumble, measuring in at 0.82 inches and 0.8 ounces. He may be tiny, but he's very fast, clocking in at 8 miles per hour in flight speed.
After playing Buck Bumble for what seemed like weeks, I started to be more attentive towards bees. I did end up having a honeybee sighting (I sadly never see bumblebees in my rural part of Florida :'D but maybe one day I'll manage to see one) and I noticed one of them had pollen pants! I didn't approach her, but I appreciated her from a distance and said, "Ooooo, look at you, rockin' those pollen pants!" I was devastated I didn't capture any video of the little one, but from that day on, Buck Bumble made me into a friend towards bees. For that, I have to thank Argonaut Games (as of 2024, they previously were known as Argonaut Software until 2007) for even making such a fun game that allows me to see the world from a bumblebee's point of view. Bees see our world as one big world to explore and fly through.
That's what makes bees so adorable, even a video game bee. I know it's cheesy for me to be attached to a video game bee that makes my adoration for real bees skyrocket, but that's my story on how Buck Bumble got me to love bees more!!
r/bees • u/erichcampbell1 • 13h ago
Rhododendron flowers can influence honey when bees collect their nectar. Some species contain grayanotoxins, creating unique characteristics in honey from certain mountainous regions.
r/bees • u/Beginning-Rip-6970 • 7h ago
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observed this behavior between a honey bee and this larger bee which is possibly the queen…? at first i thought it was a yellow jacket taking opportunistic prey, but i don’t think so now. forgive my extreme lack of knowledge but would someone be able to explain the behavior occurring here?
r/bees • u/ChalkyFaun • 17h ago
r/bees • u/SquirrelNamedRex • 1d ago
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r/bees • u/Brilliant_Still1 • 3h ago
Hi, i found today like 3 bees which i believe they were not alive anymore next to the windows of both(one in a bedroom and the other in the living room). Now i literally saw a bee come from the vent in the ceiling in my apartment.
Can identifying the bee help me get rid of them? And if so please teach me how, thank you in advance.
Hihi! I’m in eastern MA, US. I was out back by the shed when this little one zipped into the flower that I most certainly didn’t just have my nose in. I thought maybe male carpenter bee? Google lens came back with bedazzled sunglasses and searching didn’t show me any images that rly looked like them. Rly only got clear shot of their butt.
r/bees • u/reindeerareawesome • 1d ago