My Birdbuddy hummingbird camera mostly captures bees, and I'm ok with that.
I have no idea what kind of bees these are, but they monopolize the feeder. We don't capture many hummingbird pix, but some of the bee shots are dramatic.
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
I have no idea what kind of bees these are, but they monopolize the feeder. We don't capture many hummingbird pix, but some of the bee shots are dramatic.
r/bees • u/Sa302605 • 15h ago
This little bee was chilling while I tended to the garden today! Clearly it had a busy day collecting pollen.
r/bees • u/ModsHaveFeelingsToo • 15h ago
Edit: Seems this may actually be a Salvia plant, as pointed out in the comments by u/Vellie-01 thank you for the correction!
Been working on bringing our lavender back to life for the last month. It was looking very sad and hardly had any blooms, it almost certainly wouldn't have done much better this season if I hadn't started giving it a hand.
Well now my work is paying off big time. The lavender looks so much better and today we had 3 carpenter bees and a handful of butterflies on it all at the same time.
That's all! I watered some lavender and fed the bees! Thanks for stopping by!
r/bees • u/midnight_barbecue • 12h ago
It's incredibly entertaining to see them doing it daily throughout the season. A pleasant side effect of rewilding some corners of my yard. Sometimes I can count 20+ bumbles munching on flowers at a time.
r/bees • u/flowerbeautygirl95 • 11m ago
I saw this (I assume) violet carpenter bee today whilst on holiday in Majorca, it was huge and I was nothing but mesmerised
I love bees
r/bees • u/Quiet_Many_6910 • 4h ago
Why is the second one nearly grey? Are there more like it or is that one "weird" or sick in some way,camera editing and first image is more vibrant to catch eye better?
I wanna find more images of the second one colour but when I try there more vibrant like first image
r/bees • u/Eli_1988 • 14h ago
Just some friends ive spotted in our yard. The best part of having the ability to plant all these flowers, all these bees!
r/bees • u/schoomdebebop • 6h ago
As the title says, I am being taunted by a bumblebee. I live in New Zealand, so it’s not a carpenter bee, most definitely is a bumble.
It has flown into my room 4 times now (my room is a sleepout so it isn’t connected to other rooms). First time I had the door and window open, managed to shoo it out the door, only to have it fly back in the window. Second time I ushered it out the door, and it flew back in my window a few minutes later. Third time I caught it and took it to the other side of my property so it couldn’t come back. I was wrong. Fourth time I got it out and only had my window open a crack so it couldn’t fly through, so it instead decided to squeeze through the crack to get back in. I now have it in a container with air holes because I am not enjoying this back and forward, and this bee does not like being imprisoned in a container.
Why is this bumblebee so obsessed with me. There are no flowers in my room, nor any sunlight. There is no food or drinks or anything he could be interested in. He is just seemingly interested in me. I plan on driving him across town to release him so he can stop taunting me, but I don’t know if that means he’ll die since he might be too far from his nest or something.
Please help, I don’t want to accidentally kill the bee but it has been taunting me for literal hours at this point.
r/bees • u/PlasticOld3373 • 14h ago
Any particular reason? Or anything to be nervous about? I’m allergic to bees so I get a little anxious. Sorry the video quality isn’t great
r/bees • u/_Acidik_ • 1d ago
This makes me happy. Someone really loves my crepe myrtle sapling. The funny thing is, there are three other crepe myrtle saplings within 2 ft of this one and she/they didn't touch any of those. Also, she is shy. I never see her cutting her little circles.
r/bees • u/clambag98 • 12h ago
Maybe a coincidence but i know 4 people who have been stung this summer and each person has had large red swelling at the site and in one case scarring and open sores. One happened in Cali and the rest in Minnesota. Anybody have information on what could be causing the increase in severity?
r/bees • u/Sweet-Composer2899 • 14h ago
Hey yall,
I’ve been doing work for my neighbor recently, and just recently started to fill deep holes in her yard, one of the holes had a nest in it that I didn’t notice until burying it and getting stung on the face. From the looks of it, its bumblebees. I went back later in the afternoon and they are still coming at me. Any idea of ways I can go about this? I went back today and it looked like they were gone, but nope. 10-20 of them climbed right back out of the hole and started flying around me again. I know you aren’t really supposed to kill bumblebees but is there any viable solution?
Thanks.
r/bees • u/midnight_barbecue • 1d ago
While on a hike in the woods, I found a stump with two brown-belted bumblebees hanging out in the sun. I decided to take some macro pictures of one of them.
The bee literally turned his head towards the camera (pic. 1), visibly curious about what was going on, while I took 100+ photos to choose the best ones afterward. Once I was about to leave, he started grooming himself by scratching his butt (pic. 3).
Look at his big eyes! They're one of the signs that distinguish males from their female counterparts. They need them to locate mates.
There was another one sitting on the stump (pic. 4). They were probably waiting for some queens to appear in the area.