If you are looking to find native bee species in southern Alberta, late summer is an excellent time to find them. There isn’t much in bloom in the coulees around Lethbridge and further south this time of year. Therefore, what is in bloom is loaded with pollinator species. There are a lot of beetles on the goldenrod blooms and a lot of bees on the gumweed.
I recently found a type of Agapostemon Sweat Bee on Gumweed blooms. I had never seen them before and then saw hundreds in one day. Nature is fun that way. I found a picture of the bee at the top of a 14 Types of Bees Found in Alberta! (2023) article on-line. I didn’t see the name of it in the article itself (I included the address at the bottom of this post).
I think the bee was Agapostemon virescens. Even though I was really sweating, the Sweat bees were not interesting in me in the least. They were all too busy loving the Gumweed.
I found another interesting insect on the gumweed blooms in Cottonwood Park (in Lethbridge, Alberta). I have seen these little “bees” around southern Alberta frequently. I see them in Waterton Lakes National Park often when I hike there. I have tried to figure out what bee type they are to no avail. Then, by chance I happened upon a picture of a large bee-fly. The cute little mystery bee turned out to not be a bee at all. I don’t know if the one that I saw was Bombylius major. It could be a different type of bee-fly species for all I know.
The Lethbridge coulees really dry up by late summer. At first glance, everything appears dead. There is still plenty of life in the coulees, though, so take a closer look. It’s worth it!
If you enjoy seeing native bee species, you can include native plant species (that they love) in your garden. It’s nice to have nature right outside your door.
I have updated this post to include more useful resources (for identifying bees) and to include a poem that I wrote after having seen the lovely bee and bee-fly the other day. You will find my poem, Bee Taxonomy, below. I didn’t have videos to put between the stanzas, so it is a bit more of a struggle to get through (and it is a long one).
Bee Taxonomy
At first I saw an emerald, then
I saw her wasp-striped abdomen.
But she was not a wasp, you see
for Agapostemon’s a bee! –
A Sweat Bee, to be more exact.
Sweat’s scent is something to attract
this lovely little emerald bee.
The Sweat Bees never bother me.
I’ve heard they rarely sting at all,
and if one does, I guess she’d fall
down dead, if what I’ve heard is true.
So, stinging’s something few bees do.
A wasp won’t answer for her crimes,
for she can sting a hundred times,
but if a bee stings once, she dies.
That might just be a pack of lies.
That difference, though, might be the key
for bee and wasp taxonomy.
Since bees and wasps look much the same
and bees don’t always act more tame,
there’s fuzzy lines between the two.
Some bees are fuzzy gals, that’s true,
but others aren’t so fuzzy, though.
So wasp or bee? It’s tough to know.
Regarding black and yellow lines,
is there a way to see the signs
that what you see’s a wasp or bee?
Well, if there is, that’s news to me.
Some wasps and bees don’t have the stripes.
It’s tough to even see those types
as insects that are wasps or bees
at first. Still, once a person sees
the truth about their family,
it’s tough to know which type you see.
Beside that Agapostemon,
I saw a fuzzy, smaller one –
a “teddy-bee” that seemed so shy:
Bombylius – a type of fly! –
a bee-fly, not a bee at all.
It seemed so harmless, cute, and small
but it’s a parasitic fly.
So wasp? Bee? Fly? It’s tough to try
to figure out just what you see
when you believe you’ve seen a bee.
Useful Resources
https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/bee
https://www.angi.com/articles/how-identify-different-types-bees.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombylius_major
https://fieldguide.mt.gov/displaySpecies.aspx?family=Halictidae
https://ecofriendlywest.ca/so-much-we-dont-know-albertas-native-bees/
The following resources are great, but I can’t connect a link to their sites (or pdf files). You’ll have to copy and paste each address into a search bar. The birdwatching one has fun quizzes on their site. If you enjoy watching birds, you’ll likely enjoy their material.
birdwatchinghq.com/bees-in-alberta
The following is a Beginner Bee Field Guide from https://extension.colostate.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/BeginnerBeeFieldGuide_LowRezWeb_28Feb2022.pdf (the link to their pdf below may work… or you might have to hit the colostate website and search for it).
The following is a bee identification guide from Kamloops. If you are trying to identify bees in southern Alberta (or in BC), this may be helpful. The link below may work, or you may have to copy and paste the following address to try to find it https://www.kamloops.ca/sites/default/files/docs/our-community/tsmg_bee_identification_guide_ff3.pdf
mountainbrideblog 