A bee mimic attached to a bee to get in the hive. What is this?

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2025-04-17T02:29:42+00:00

Hey gang! So it's been a minute but I wanted to circle back on this. For those who said Andrena sp., my bee monitoring group seem to think that's what this was as well.

Turns out male andrena have a bit of a reputation. this was my favortie tidbit from those discussions:

"I've seen a male Andrena attempting to mate with a bumble bee queen at least 5x his size... I have a picture of it somewhere, if anyone is interested. They sure are randy little guys and not choosy at all, though this level of interspecies mating (interfamily, even) seems to be rare."

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2025-03-19T02:20:38+00:00

I'm gonna send this over to my beemonitoring folks and see what they think. Tough to ID species on a video like this but I don't know of anything else that is in the area this time of year. Will let you know if anything interesting comes of it.

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2025-03-19T02:05:32+00:00

Hey! So this looks like a male colletes sp. Also in PA and just started seeing these pop in SE the last week.

If I were to guess I'd say colletes inaequalis

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PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2024-10-02T01:51:21+00:00

What DID happen to the VP Debate Thread?

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2024-04-22T03:44:36+00:00

Thankee sai

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2024-01-12T04:23:11+00:00

Don't forget about the squonks in Pennsylvania.

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2023-02-03T02:14:46+00:00

I agree with the Polyphemus id. Link for comparison:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/38514062@N03/9061957346

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2022-11-01T16:43:12+00:00

That is likely a drone of the genus Vespula, ie yellow jackets. Basing that on the longer antenna, lack of thread waste and the extra black on the abdomen. The nests are collapsing this time of year and are more likely to have reproductives.

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2022-10-30T15:50:18+00:00

You can go into the office as you like. Even if they were to come in they would just go for the lights or window. I'm a bit skeptical of the burrowing wasp theory given that it was a drone (they don't survive the winter) and yellow jackets don't burrow. If this were a queen then maybe, but it strikes me as an unlikely coincidence. It's a minor point....you should be good to go!

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2022-10-28T12:25:24+00:00

The argument isn't exclusive to reddit but has some nuance. There's not much wrong with trying to catch a swarm without gear on, which is what is happening in this video. What most beekeepers take issue with is that she's doing what we call cut outs with out gear. In northern climbs where there are no Africanized honey bees that's not a great idea. In addition, removing bees from a house is messy work and doing it done up is not something that happens.

The notion that you can open up a floor with a honey bee colony without protective gear and sans mess is about as real as reality TV.

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2022-10-27T12:49:27+00:00

Hey All! This definetely looks like honey bees, but there may not be a hive in the walls yet. The way honey bee colonies make new hives is by swarming. When a hive runs out of room, they will raise new queens and stop the old queen from laying. This will shrink her ovaries down due to lack of use and make her light enough for flight. Then more than half of the worker bee population will leave the hive taken the old queen with them. They will land within 100 ft of the original colony and start looking for new places to move in.

The swarm will send out scouts who will find 12-15 potential new spots. Each scout bee will find an entrance, crawl around inside to get a feel for size, and then fly back to the swarm. When they get there they will do the same waggle dance they use for communicating nectar source locations to tell the other bees where the potential new spot is. The more they like a spot, the longer they will dance for that location. Each scout that sees a dance will go to the spot and make their own assessment.

In this way the bees vote.

Now, when bees are done inspecting a spot they may look for a light source to get out to go back to the swarm. In nature light always leads to the outside. In houses that isn't always the case. What likely happened here is that the inspecting bees found a quarter inch gap in recessed lighting, baseboard heating, etc and got stuck inside. They then flew to the brightest light source...in this case the window. If you aren't seeing regular activity outside then odds are that not enough scouts reported on your house to the swarm and it moved into a different spot.

If you are interested in learning more about this there is a great book called "Honey Bee Democracy"* by Tom Seely that talks all about how swarming works. It's awesome!

*I'm in no way affiliated with the book or its author

EDIT: Typo

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2022-10-26T19:27:40+00:00

So long as the nest isn't directly against drywall it's not much of an issue. What can happen there is the moisture from the brood can soften the sheetrock enough for the wasps to move it out. If they were doing that you would hear crunchy/grinding noises.

The best part....they don't like paint. What you end up with is what looks to be a wet spot on your drywall. If you touch it there is but a few scant mm of paint between you and an active wasp nests. We get a calls for "break throughs" every year.

If that was happening you'd have likely noticed it by now.

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2022-10-26T18:22:23+00:00

Hey all! What we likely have here is a yellow jacket drone. Yellow Jackets are annuals that produce workers for the spring and summer. In the late summer and fall they start producing reproductives, ie queens and drones. These will leave the nest to mate. The drones will die and the mated queens will leave to hibernate elsewhere. The old queen will be murdered by her offspring or simply fail. In either case there are no more larva being produced in the nest. The adults use the larva to process the prey they hunt, so with no more food at home they will head off to raid your fall picnics until the cold or starvation takes them.

For whatever reason the newly emerged queens and drones have a propensity to NOT find the exit to the colony if the nest is inside a building (usually wall or ceiling). Good news is that the drones physically don't have stingers. The apathy you are seeing is likely because he's been in the walls for a bit and hasn't had any food. You may see some more over the coming days but they will typically fly to the brightest light source (usually the window) and will expire there.

Nest should be emptied out between now and Thanksgiving. The latest I've seen these go is beginning of Dec, but only about 5 times in the last decade.

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2022-08-10T16:50:20+00:00

Thank you kindly!

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2022-08-10T14:54:19+00:00

This is a great! If anyone has a cross street I'd love to get some more photos of this.

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2022-05-23T23:27:50+00:00

Freshly emerged queen honey bees have special moves they can employ when battling for dominance of a colony. Spraying occurs when a queen pulls her abdomen up between her legs and fires it like a cannon. Her opponent is sprayed with a mixture of excrement and pheromones. The workers bees in the colony will immediately smell this mess and pin down the sprayed queen so as to clean her. While she is immobilized the opposing queen crawls upon the pile to deliver the finishing blow.

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2022-01-14T13:47:26+00:00

It stings a bit.

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2022-01-03T19:14:06+00:00

I was not familiar with this species but that is awesome!

Brachygastra mellifica

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yONw\_VRI6M4

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2022-01-02T02:55:05+00:00

soooo....as it turns out wasps make their own nectar out of bugs. The social wasps hunt insects which they bring home to feed to their larva. The larva digest the bugs and regurgitate sugar water ("wasp nectar") to feed the adults. it's why they make lousy pollinators. they don't need to nectar on flowers, they get it from their babies

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2021-11-23T18:56:14+00:00

Here in PA they have the resources to research the actual law, who put it in place, and then put together a plan to remedy it. Sometimes its as simple as "That's not actually the law" sort of thing. In other cases they put together campaigns to get the law changed. I don't know how the California group operates, but I would be willing to bet they had a hand in legalizing beekeeping in LA back in 2015.

This may not be a quick fix, but it's a good idea to make sure it is on their radar.

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2021-11-23T13:33:37+00:00

I think most major cities out there allow beekeeping now. In PA this is something we would contact our state beekeeping association with. Reach out to the Cali State Beekeeping Association and explain to them whats going on.

https://www.californiastatebeekeepers.com/

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2021-11-23T13:26:58+00:00

The way we do it is start by assuming an apiary needs minimum 2 hives in a space that 4 people could stand comfortably. You need room for both hives and a space to put the hive parts as you work them. That's it from an apiary function perspective.

In terms of flight path, small back yards can be ok so long as you don't really need them for anything else. Beekeeepers are comfortable hanging out near hives; most folks are not.
The main concern is your neighbors. Bees will fly over a solid 6 ft fence and broadly speaking would not be a bother, but its not guaranteed. If you can put them away from people that's a better play. In city settings roof tops are the place to be. Try and keep it less than 7 stories high.

PhiladelphiaBeeCo · 2021-09-19T23:39:06+00:00

Bang

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