Nothing but males

At the end of several rainless months, when fields are nearly devoid of flowers, you expect bees to be equally scarce. But I am seeing lots of bees on the few open flowers (Mentha, Lontodon(?), Madia). An occasional Apis or Ceratina. And lots of Lasioglossum. I collected a few dozen of these (large ones, olympiae? and dialictus), and they were invariably male.

What kind of sense does that make? The odds that any of the males I saw will mate on that day is zero. Do they wait around?

BTW, the dense and highly plumose clypeal hairs on the dialictus are striking. Presumably that is a dialictus male thing.

Posted on October 25, 2022 08:05 PM by cappaert