Description
When I posted this bee to my neighbourhood, two separate people replied that they had never seen one before. Somebody else said they were lucky enough to have them in the garden every year.
Same city. Same insect. She is in a great many Portland gardens and most people walk past her for a lifetime.
She is a generalist, which is part of why she turns up everywhere. She will work asters, cosmos, sunflowers, herbs, whatever is flowering — unlike the long-horned bees a few weeks later in the season, whose entire adult lives are timed to one family of late-summer blooms. The specialist gets six weeks and one flower. She gets the whole summer and takes what she finds.
The name is literal, incidentally. Sweat bees are called that because some species in this family will land on human skin to drink perspiration, after the salt. They are not aggressive about it and they very rarely sting.
What you will receive: a high-resolution JPEG, 5464 x 3072 pixels — large enough to print at full photo quality up to about 18 × 10 inches at 300 DPI. Delivered as an instant download the moment your order is complete.
License: Personal use only. Print it for your own home, use it as a wallpaper or screen background, enjoy it yourself. Not licensed for commercial use, resale, redistribution, or AI training. © Jonathan Swanson / JonSwan Productions. All rights reserved.