European Honey Bee on the purple Anemone Flower

Honeybees are social insects that live in hives. Like all insects, bees have six legs, a three-part body, a pair of antennae, compound eyes, jointed legs, and a hard exoskeleton. The three body parts are the head, thorax, and abdomen (the tail end).

Bees can fly about 15 mph (24 kph). They eat nectar (a sweet liquid made by flowers) which they turn into honey. In the process of going from flower to flower to collect nectar, pollen from many plants gets stuck on the bee’s pollen baskets (hairs on the hind legs). Pollen is also rubbed off of flowers. This pollinates many flowers (fertilizing them and producing seeds).

All the members of the hive are related to each other. There are three types of honey bees:

• the queen (who lays eggs)
• workers – females who gather food, make honey, build the six-sided honeycomb, tend eggs, and guard the hive
• drones – males who mate with the queen.

Bees undergo complete metamorphosis. The queen lays an egg in a cell in the wax comb (all the immature bees are called the brood). The egg hatches into a worm-like larva, which eventually pupates into an adult bee.

Wow, I am so thrilled I was able to snap some pictures of these great beneficial insects on my roof/patio!  Here is an update to the labeling.  Three months after the original post, I have been able to identify the weird “native bee” as actually a Hover Fly.