Bombus

Well, today I went in and worked with the bees. Bombus. I am still new to species names, and on many of the specimenins I found the word "chrysothamnus" as in the flower. I thought, hmm, that's like the flower, but I thought it might be a species name, but I sorted a bunch accordingly. Long story short, I fumbled a bunch of sorting into bees found on common flowers, but at least I learned. So now I am going to try and focus down into the genus Bombus in which I am working in the collection. I will go back tomorrow, hopefully more adept and knowlegable than today.


So Bombus. I'm going to BugGuide website to get my information.

Subgenus Bombias
Species Bombus auricomus
Species Bombus nevadensis
Subgenus Bombus
Species Bombus affinis - Rusty Patched Bumble Bee
Species Bombus terricola - Yellowbanded Bumble Bee

Subgenus Cullumanobombus
Species Bombus crotchii
Species Bombus fraternus - Southern Plains Bumble Bee
Species Bombus griseocollis - Brownbelted Bumble Bee
Species Bombus rufocinctus - Redbelted Bumble Bee


Bombus morrisoni

Subgenus Psithyrus (Cuckoo bumblebees)
Species Bombus citrinus - Lemon Cuckoo Bumble Bee
Species Bombus fernaldae - Fernald Cuckoo Bumble Bee
Species Bombus insularis - Indiscriminate Cuckoo Bumble Bee

Subgenus Pyrobombus
Species Bombus bifarius
Species Bombus bimaculatus - Twospotted Bumble Bee
Species Bombus flavifrons
Species Bombus huntii
Species Bombus impatiens - Common Eastern Bumble Bee

Bombus centralisBombus mixtus

Subgenus Thoracobombus
Bombus fervidus californicus

Subgenus Bombus sensu strictoBombus terricola occidentalis
Ok, well I don't recognize any of the species names, so I will try a wikipedia world bumblebee species list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_bumblebee_species#Bombias
And going back to the list insert the ones I recognize from the lab.

And now I'm finding some pictures from http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?search=Apoidea

Well that's a bit better. It's all a matter of familiarity. These sites would be good identification tools. But my task is more to take the already identified specimens and put them into already existing boxes. I'm no expert, so it's not really my place to try to ID anything...yet!