We have the U.S. Army to thank for allowing us to see bees in a new light. Sam Droege, head of the bee inventory and monitoring program at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has been gathering inventory on the 4,000 North American bee species.
Identifying the insects and cataloging them accurately has been difficult as some are incredibly tiny.
Luckily for Droege and his team, the U.S. Army’s Public Health Command has Tony Gutierrez. The molecular biologist has designed a camera system that captures biting insects. The camera conceived has a macro lens with a slider that can take focal increments.
When this method was shared with USGS, the images captured changed the game. The bees are not the expected black and yellow colors. They come in varying hues of iridescent blues, pinks and greens.
Bees are essential to agriculture. The bees pollinate fruits, vegetables and nuts. Knowing the health of bees correlates with the condition of the environment.
Bumblebee (Bombus griseocollis)
Carpenter bee (Xylocopa mordax)
Honeybee (Apis mellifera)
A South Dakota bee (Anthophora affabilis)
Crow bee (Halictus ligatus)
This bee is half the size of a grain of rice (Hylaeus modestus)
A sand bee from North Carolina (Augochloropsis sumptuosa)
This bee lives in sand dunes (Augochloropsis metallica)
Source
Identifying the insects and cataloging them accurately has been difficult as some are incredibly tiny.
Luckily for Droege and his team, the U.S. Army’s Public Health Command has Tony Gutierrez. The molecular biologist has designed a camera system that captures biting insects. The camera conceived has a macro lens with a slider that can take focal increments.
When this method was shared with USGS, the images captured changed the game. The bees are not the expected black and yellow colors. They come in varying hues of iridescent blues, pinks and greens.
Bees are essential to agriculture. The bees pollinate fruits, vegetables and nuts. Knowing the health of bees correlates with the condition of the environment.
Bumblebee (Bombus griseocollis)
Carpenter bee (Xylocopa mordax)
Honeybee (Apis mellifera)
A South Dakota bee (Anthophora affabilis)
Crow bee (Halictus ligatus)
This bee is half the size of a grain of rice (Hylaeus modestus)
A sand bee from North Carolina (Augochloropsis sumptuosa)
This bee lives in sand dunes (Augochloropsis metallica)