Sweat bee
Halictidae · Bees & wasps
Sweat bee deep in a mallow
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 12 July 2025
A sweat bee worked in almost to the base of a mallow in the July border, dusted white with pollen picked up along the way. Sweat bees are the small dark bees of every garden flower, nesting in the ground across North America, and the family supplies most of the tiny bees on a summer border.
Small, sparsely haired and faintly metallic. They are named for the habit some have of landing on skin to drink sweat for the salt. Which of the many look-alike species is not something the pollen coat and the shadow allow.
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