Different Bolivian Bee’s (and their relatives)

Bolivian bees being baited, walking with wasps, and ants all around! Hypnotizing Hymenoptera!

Alright, enough with the alliteration and onto the photos! This metallic Orchid bee (family Apidae, subfamily Euglossinae) was lured down from the forest canopy by a simple swatch of cloth with some wintergreen or clove oil on it. These largely solitary bees are important pollinators for the diverse orchids that grow amoungst the tree tops.

This Polistes sp. (I think, family Vespidae anyways) was in the process of gathering mud to take back to the colony as building material for the next comb.

This photo of a wasp (family Vespidae) turned out to be one of my favourite photos of the trip.

Now, I’m by no means an expert myrmecologist or myrmetographer (I highly suggest visiting the Myrmecos Blog to see the cream of the crop in ant photography and scientific discussion) but these large ants caught my attention as they battled along the leaf.

Some of the most interesting (and easily the hardest working) tropical ants in my mind are these leaf-cutter ants (Atta sp.). The ants are returning home with food not for themselves, but for the fungus cultures that they have “domesticated” in their colonies off of which they feed. There’s no time to slow down for these ants, and I look forward to improving on my photos in the future!

Now that we’ve got the “lesser” orders out of the way (:D), we can move onto the most interesting order, the flies! Check back tomorrow for part 1 of 2!