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Giant blue bee12/31/2023 The Eastern Carpenter Bee ( Xylocopa virginica) is a beautiful and robust bee about the size of a large bumble bee. We only have one species of large carpenter bee in the Northeastern United States. Take pictures if you see them, maybe you’ll spot a fourth species! Brown-belted Bumble Bee (Bombus griseocollis) © bleppo Common Eastern Bumbl Bee (Bombus impatients) © skitterbug Golden Northern Bumblebee (Bombus fervidus) © Paweł Pieluszyński The Common Eastern only has yellow hairs on only the first abdominal segment and all the rest of the segments have black hair. The hair color varies from yellow to brown, but it is not fully black. The Brown-belted has yellow hairs on the first segment as well as the second segment. The Golden Northern has all or almost all yellow hairs on its abdomen. If you look closely, you can tell these bees apart by the pattern of yellow and black hairs on the seven horizontal abdominal segments. Bumble bees are social and live in colonies that can have up to a few hundred bees. We collected three different species of bumble bee The Golden Northern Bumble Bee ( Bombus fervidus), The Brown-belted Bumble Bee ( Bombus griseocollis), and The Common Eastern Bumble Bee ( Bombus impatiens). Below are ten of the bees that you might see next time you visit the NCL! I’m very excited to see what other kinds of bees people spot and post on iNaturalist during the NCL’s full season BioBlitz! Sarah demonstrating the netting technique, which is used to capture samples for identification. In just a couple of sunshiny hours that day, we collected three species of bumble bee, one species of carpenter bee, two species of sweat bee, three species of leaf-cutter bee and a cuckoo-leaf-cutter bee. Danielle and Greg, NCL Associates, gave me a fantastic tour, describing the ongoing and planned landscaping work and then joined me in observing and collecting a variety of flower foragers. I had the pleasure of visiting the Naval Cemetery Landscape in late July of 2019. We asked Sarah to tell us a little bit more about the native bees that she identified last year, so that visitors know what to look for when they visit the NCL! Keep your eye out for these flower forages next time you’re at the NCL, and anywhere along the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway. All of the native pollinators identified at the NCL this season will be used by staff to inform their landscaping practices and create better pollinator habitat, in addition to being used as data for the Empire State Native Pollinator Survey, currently being conducted by the New York Natural Heritage Program. In order to further the understanding of NCL’s pollinator population and use the findings for research, this year the NCL is inviting visitors to come and make their own bee observations, and upload their findings to iNaturalist during our season-long BioBlitz. In order to learn more about the insect biodiversity at the NCL, last year we invited Sarah Kornbluth, bee biologist from the American Museum of Natural History, to do a short survey of our pollinator population. The Landscape’s design incorporates nectar rich annuals and native perennials, creating crucial habitat in the urban setting. The Naval Cemetery Landscape is home to dozens of native bee species, butterflies, dragonflies, and various other pollinating insects.
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