The most incredible photographs of bees you will ever see

THE U.S. Geological Survey’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, has some fantastic life to see. Sam Droege has the job of photographing the wildlife that arrives in a place that aims “to provide the information needed to better manage the nation’s biological resources”. He has taken lots of pictures of bees. Working with the USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab, Droege has documenting many of the 4,000 species of bees in North America.

Why?

For the past 10 years, his lab has been trying to track the decline of bees, but ran into a problem: Most people can’t identify different species of bees. According to Droege, there are approximately 4,000 bee species in North America and around 400-500 have never been described.

“We needed some good pictures,” he said. “We [needed] really high-definition pictures that people can drill into and say, ‘You know the pattern of the crosshatching between the pits on the skin of the upper part of the bee is really different than this one.’ “

Augochlorella aurata, Boonesboro, Maryland

Bombus bimaculatus, Wolftrap National Park for the Performing Arts, Virginia. USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab.

Xylocopa mordax, Dominican Republic

Halictus ligatus covered in pollen, Morris Arboretum, Philadelphia, PA

Anthophora plumipes, Maryland

Osmia chalybea, Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia

“Many of the coolest-looking bugs … are right in people’s yards. They’re exotic just because people haven’t seen them at the same scale as dogs and horses and cats,” Droege says.

Spotter: Smithsonian