Bees of the eastern United States

Both Volumes accessible online...an excellent reference work!

Summarizing earlier comments below, both volumes can be read online at the "Internet Archive" website.

While Volume II is directly accessible...Volume I requires a (quick & free) account sign-up, and a (quick & free) "online book check-out" process.

Volume I (Introduction, Colletidae, Andrenidae, Halictidae, and Melittidae): https://archive.org/details/beesofeasternuni0001theo

Volume II (Megachilidae, Anthophoridae, Xylocopidae, and Apidae): https://archive.org/details/beesofeasternuni00mitc

The formal coverage area is the entire region east of the Mississippi River.

For those interested in the backstory of this work, and its author, I recommend the 2016 paper in The American Entomologist entitled: "T. B. Mitchell: The Man Behind The Bees of the Eastern United States" (PDF available here).

A small excerpt from that paper:

"Much of Mitchell’s taxonomic work is still valid, and his two-volume opus, The Bees of the Eastern United States, published in 1960 and 1962, remains an important reference for bee biologists. “I use them still, if I get a bunch of unidentified Andrena or some other genus,” said renowned melittologist Charles Michener of the University of Kansas."
This work is indeed a "classic" of bee taxonomy.

… Aaron Schusteff, 29 June, 2023 - 12:55pm

Volume 1 is also freely acces

Volume 1 is also freely accessible on Hathitrust: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951p011131499&view=1up&seq=7

… Arturo Santos, 12 July, 2023 - 3:50pm

Updated and Alternate links

The link =v= provided above wasn't working when I tried it and appears to be broken.

I found an alternate URL which I'm guessing corresponds to the same web page the old URL above originally linked to above:

https://projects.ncsu.edu/cals/entomology/museum/easternBees.php

The Internet Archive link below is another alternative, but it only provides Vol II (covering Megachilidae, Anthophoridae, Xylocopidae, and Apidae):

https://archive.org/details/beesofeasternuni00mitc

… Aaron Schusteff, 15 January, 2017 - 11:14pm

Additional alternate link

Volume I (containing Colletidae, Andrenidae, Halictidae, and Melittidae) is also now available at Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/beesofeasternuni0001theo

… sk_kilpatrick, 29 June, 2023 - 10:19am

Great!

Many thanks, good to have both volumes available. I've often seen this work referenced in the "bee literature"...guess it's a "classic", with lots of valuable info, figures, insights, etc. Wish there were a similar work for bees of the western US!

I'm a bit puzzled as to why the Vol II link is directly viewable on the "Internet Archive" website, whereas the Vol I link requires creating an account (which is free) on the website, and going through a library-like "book check out". But that's not so hard to do, and it's wonderful to have both volumes freely available to the public :-)

… Aaron Schusteff, 29 June, 2023 - 10:53am