The Wearing of the Green
St. Patrick's Day is a good time to celebrate the Wearing of the Green in the insect world.
The metallic green sweat bee, Agapostemon texanus, also known as "the ultra green sweat bee," fits the bill. The green bill.
The female is metallic green from head to thorax to abdomen. The male, however, is metallic green from head to thorax, but with a black and yellow-banded abdomen.
The Agapostemon are members of the Halictinae family, described in the book, Bees of the World, by Christopher O'Toole and Christopher Raw, as a world-wide group of bees. They are "often called sweat bees because in hot weather they are attracted to human perspiration, which they lap up, probably for the salt it contains," they write.
Some of the family's many genera, including Agapostemon, are restricted to the New World. Halictus and Lasioglossum "are common to the Old and New Worlds," according to O'Toole and Raw.
In "California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists," (Heyday Books, 2018), the University of California-connected authors (Gordon Frankie, late Robbin Thorp, Rollin Coville and Barbara Ertter) also point out the moisture and salt connection: "Sweat bees have earned their comion name from the tendency, especially of the smaller species, to alight on one's skinand lap up perspiration for both its moisure and salt content."
Now if just one Agapostemon--just one Agapostemon--would land on our arms and do that....
P.S.: Stay tuned--California Bees and Blooms is now being revised.
Cover image: A female metallic green sweat bee, Agapostemon texanus, nectaring on a purple coneflower. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
