Identification, Images, & Information
For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin
For the United States & Canada

Apoidea (clade Anthophila) - Bees


A subgeneric revision of the genus Osmia in the Western Hemisphere (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae)
By R. N. Sinha
Kans. Univ. Sci. Bul. Vol. 39, No. 5, pp. 211-261, 1958

The systematics and biology of the genus Osmia, subgenera Osmia, Chalcosmia and Cephalosmia
By R. W. Rust
Wasmann Journal of Biology 32(1):1-93, 1974

The North American bees of the genus Osmia
By G.A. Sandhouse
Mem. Ent. Soc. Wash. 1: 1-167, 1939
Full text viewable online and downloadable as pdf, but only one page at a time.

A Revision of the Genus Ashmeadiella (Hymen., Megachilidae)
By Michener, Charles D.
The American Midland Naturalist. 22(1): 1-84, 1939
Available online at JStor

The Megachiline Bees of California (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae)
By Paul D. Hurd, Jr., and Charles D. Michener
University of California Press, 1955
Bulletin of the California Insect Survey Vol. 3 FULL TEXT

Bumble Bees and Cuckoo Bumble Bees of California (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
By Thorp R.W., Horning D.S., Jr., Dunning L.L.
Bull. Calif. Ins. Survey 23: viii+79 pp., 1983

Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide
By Williams et al.
Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. 208 pp., 2014
Paul H. Williams, Robbin W. Thorp, Leif L. Richardson & Sheila R. Colla. 2014. Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. 208 pp.

Publisher's Page

More than ever before, there is widespread interest in studying bumble bees and the critical role they play in our ecosystems. Bumble Bees of North America is the first comprehensive guide to North American bumble bees to be published in more than a century. Richly illustrated with color photographs, diagrams, range maps, and graphs of seasonal activity patterns, this guide allows amateur and professional naturalists to identify all 46 bumble bee species found north of Mexico and to understand their ecology and changing geographic distributions.

Patterns of widespread decline in North American bumble bees.
By Cameron et al.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 108: 662-667. , 2011
Full Text

Cameron et al. (2011) quantified dramatic range-wide population declines in B. occidentalis, B. pensylvanicus, B. affinis, and B. terricola that have occurred over the last few decades.

Abstract (part):

Here, we report results of a 3-y interdisciplinary study of changing distributions, population genetic structure, and levels of pathogen infection in bumble bee populations across the United States. We compare current and historical distributions of eight species, compiling a database of >73,000 museum records for comparison with data from intensive nationwide surveys of >16,000 specimens. We show that the relative abundances of four species have declined by up to 96% and that their surveyed geographic ranges have contracted by 23–87%, some within the last 20 y.