Summer Bee Update

Weird year for bees. Wet weather. Favors some and hinders others in a way I do not yet understand. Bees are complex in their population biology-always going extinct in one place and growing to abundance in another. There is a study of bees in Carlinville IL, the most famous bee study ever, in the late nineteenth century, by a man named Carson. There is a return study that concludes that, despite changes, most of the same bees are still there. In my yard, everything has speeded up to a ridiculous degree. Male Megachile georgica swarm and lek about ornamental sunflowers. Agapostemon viriscens, not early at all, but back from a long hiatus, forages there.