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Sweat Bee

Sweat Bee

Sweat Bee Close-Up

Lasioglossum (Dialictus)

I really liked these photos because the archive size shows the thick sticky globs of pollen on this bee’s legs so well! 

These photos were taken at the Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh, NC.

I guessed that this one was in the subgenera Dialictus rather than Ceratina because it was brassier (rather than dark) and had fairly pronounced hairs that helped it collect pollen.

“Sweat Bee” though is a large family of bees that like the salt in human sweat. They are generally the most common bees wherever bees are found except for in Australia (perhaps the Aussies are much less sweaty than their other-country counterparts!). Since they are attracted to the sweat on our skin they can become a nuisance. They do sting, but usually only if disturbed. However – their sting is rated fairly low on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index (wow – read those descriptions. Someone just “stapled your cheek”?!?!?!).

Because there are so many different kinds of sweat bees there is an array of different social behaviors that have been examined. Some sweat bees live communally with several females per nest, each with their own entrance. Some are parasitic and invade the nest of other sweat bees, lay eggs that when hatched their larva eats the larva of the host bee, some live solitary in the ground attracted to the salt from seeping groundwater, etc.

Science and the Lasioglossum (Dialictus)

Though I don’t have full access to ScienceMag.com (I’m cheap and I already subscribe to Scientific American (thanks husband!)), there was a neat abstract regarding the bee I captured in the photos above. It seems as though there is scientific evidence that the male bees have an anti-aphrodisiac. The author reports that males are attracted to the odor of virgin females – however, with that kind of a tantalizing signal many males appear. Research suggests that once a female has been contacted by a male that the female’s attractiveness to other males ebbs. Tainted goods or just plain old chemical message courtship?