Welcome to the 2013 Beach issue! Here we bring out our best shots of the loveliest ladies relaxing at beautiful Island View Beach. The beauties in the next few pages had us stunned at our exotic field location on gorgeous Vancouver Island.
Cute Little Homewrecker
Coelioxys says she is really a nice girl at heart, enjoying the simple things in life: nectar, long flights on the beach and sunrises.
II chatted with this little cutie after the shoot, and she says the rumours about being a homewrecker are blown out of proportion.
“Where did you hear that? Megachile? I can’t help how she raises her larvae! She is probably just mad because she has a big butt! Did you know Coelioxys is Greek and refers to my sharp ovipositor and’slender tapered abdomen’? That’s me!”
“I am actually super playful!”
“sure, sometimes I drop some eggs in Megachile‘s nest occasionally, but she seems like the nurturing type! She is always working, so an extra mouth to feed will just give her a new challenge!”
“I just love to hang out at the beach and watch the sunrise! It is so romantic!”
Sand Lover
“I am just the girl next door. I enjoy simple things, like sand to dig in, caterpillars to paralyze, and a communal roosting site”
“My girlfriends and I like to hang out together. Preferably from a stiff dead flower stalk!”
“In the daytime, it is just go go go, but nighttime is our time to just relax, with our jaws clenched tightly on dead vegetation!”
The girls of Island View Beach!
Sometimes the girls like to hang out in a group situation. II was there capturing all the hot, yet completely motionless action.
“Cross-species sleepovers are fun”, Ammophila tells our reporters.
“You get to meet all kinds of interesting insects. It is funny how we have such different day to day lives, but at night we all like the same kinds of things, like allowing our bodies to reach low temperatures. It isn’t a party until you cannot even fly!”.
When the girls hang out together, nothing is sexier than a giant bee-wasp totem formation.
Copper beauty Lycaena helloides doesn’t mind getting wet!
I really feel like I have a lot in common with Coelioxys! We just have the same kind of liberated outlook. And we both like, kinda enjoy sticking our ovipositor in someone else’s stuff!”
“I have a love/hate relationship with sunrises. I like to dry my wings, but it means getting back to work, and possibly getting grabbed by a random male”
Buff Beach Body
“I use these big, burly tibiae to cover my mate’s eyes while mating, although I am so pretty, I wonder why she would be into that”.
This stunner of a bee was sleeping the beach when our photographer found him. Ibycter Illustrated beach shoots have a way of uncovering new talent!
He is a mysterious creature, and would’t even give his name, but he told us “I frickin’ hate Coelioxys, that little parasite!”.
Delightful posting!
Thanks! All those beautiful insects lounging at the beach. Seemed fitting!
The last bee looks like a Megachile male. They have what I call mittens for front tibiae, which are sometimes inflated a little and are used to cover the female’s eyes when mating. Not sure which species. Lovely set of photos!
A male! Oh well, I will have to change the text a bit! Thanks for the info. I suspected it was Megachile, but it is such a big genus, I did not know where to start.
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Very nice! Thank you!
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