A male squash bee, Peponapis pruinosa, photographed at about 8:00 a.m. in a Calabazilla (Cucurbita foetidissima) flower at the Claremont Colleges' Robert J. Bernard Biological Field Station.

John Ascher confirmed the ID for Hartmut Wisch's photos taken in the same Calabazilla patch:



I found these bees by following up on Ron Hemberger's suggestion to check out the Calabazilla flowers. When I checked too late in the morning, the bees flew around too quickly for me to photograph. When I checked too early, the bees were sleeping, and I could only photograph bee rear ends. But between 7:30 and 8:00 a.m. was just right. These were very busy flowers. At one point two P. pruinosa and two Xylocopa varipuncta (Valley Carpenter Bees) all got into the same flower!