Subject: Sweat Bees
Location: Baldwin Hills in Los Angeles, CA
July 18, 2012 8:32 pm
Hi! Last year we noticed a few all-green metallic sweat bees in our garden (burrowing – sent you the pics). Now we’re seeing a different type of sweat bee: smaller with a green metallic head and thorax; black-and-yellow striped abdomen. They love the blooming artichoke. There’s a skipper in one shot, to provide perspective.
Signature: Tracy
Hi Tracy,
This is another Sweat Bee in the family Halictidae, and we believe it is most likely in the genus Agapostemon based on the photos posted to BugGuide. We will see if your Metallic Green Sweat Bee submitted last year is in our archive. Back then you thought it might be Agapostemon texanus and females of that species are all green while males have striped abdomens according to BugGuide images. We would say that chances are last year you photographed a female and this year a male. We also find these Green Metallic Sweat Bees on cardoons, a wild member of the artichoke family, in our Mt Washington, Los Angeles neighborhood.