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Hi, I am obviously the most fabulous because of my shiny green metallic color. Like many other bees on this call, I am usually solitary but can at times nest communally. A couple of my friends have shared a nest entrance with lots of other species you see here like Halictus, so we are super inclusive in our communal living spaces.
Hi there, my unfortunate nickname is the “shortface bee” because my antenna are a little lower on my head than my friends’.
We tend to be specialists, but each species specializes on a very different type of flower.
Hello from my humble ground dwelling! Many of us are highly social like the honey bees but our colonies range from 2-200 workers. Our sociality may change though. For example, one of my cousins Halictus rubicundus is highly social in warmer environments but solitary in colder areas at higher elevations. It’s pretty amazing how flexible we are able to be in response to the environment!
Hi! Like many of my friends here, we have a wide diversity of lifestyles so I can’t speak on behalf of the other 630 species in my group. However, I will say that because we have so many social forms (i.e. some solitary, communal, semi-social, eusocial and parasitic) we are an ideal group for studying how social life evolves. I am technically within the group Lasioglossum so we are difficult to tell apart.
Even though my friend Dialictus is a part of my group, the true Lasioglossum usually leads a solitary life, not a highly social one. But, I’ll touch on one thing that unites us all in this breakout room. So all of us here in the Halictidae family are called “sweat bees” because you guessed it- we are attracted to your sweat. Why? For the salt and minerals!
I don’t have much to add that these wonderful ladies haven’t already touched on. I will just mention that us male solitary bees are usually easy to tell apart from our female counterparts by our relatively longer antenna. If you look at mine versus lady Dufourea, you can see the striking difference!
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