Non-honey bees

Do you like to get up early, or prefer sleeping in and staying up late? In Poland, we call the first type of people “the skylarks” and the second – “the owls”. I’m definitely the latter.

Bees usually are early risers, but you still can find a variability among them. The pantaloon bee, Dasypoda hirtipes, prefers flowers of common chicory, which usually open early and close already around noon. The bee also tends to finish her work early. At the other end of the spectrum are nocturnal bee species, which fly at dawn or dusk. They usually have large eyes and ocelli to catch as much light as possible. Probably the best known nocturnal species is Megalopta genalis (in the cartoon, I portrayed a male).