New Bee Record for Western Hemisphere from Washington County! All: I have been plowing through my backlog of unidentified bees these holidays(90 boxes so far!) and came across some Heriades (2 females and a male) from a heavily disturbed borrow pit/ dump/ ball fields between Clear Springs and Hagerstown, that I collected in 2 years ago. They looked the same as our East Coast Heriades (small bees that nest in holes made by things like powder post beetles) , but had massive mandibles and the females had odd little hair filled foveas on the inner edges of their front tibia, making them part of a subgenus only found in the Eastern Hemisphere. They could have been brought in via pallet wood or dunnage from Europe or China. Am going to have to visit the Port of Baltimore again to see what lingers around that area. They are getting sent to Terry Griswold in Logan, Utah for further divining. bee bop
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 16:38:17 +0000