This web site is about the bees found living in
Florida, USA. It is designed to help facilitate their identification by
serving as a virtual reference collection and to help point out the key
features used in identifying bees to family, genus, and species. It is
organized taxonomically-bees are grouped by family, subfamily, genus,
subgenus, and species. The links at the top of each page can take you to the
linked pages within each group, up one level, and to my home page. Due to
the many images found associated with the species, a high speed internet
connection is highly recommended (cable modem, dsl, or higher speed).
The bees of Florida include members of six families of bees, the
Colletidae (26 taxa), Melittidae (2 taxa),
Andrenidae (63 taxa), Halictidae
(66 taxa), Megachilidae (72 taxa), and
Apidae (87 taxa) for a total of 316 taxa. Bees are
likely the most important
pollinators of native plants in Florida, although many other organisms
(e.g., butterflies, moths, beetles, and birds) contribute to pollination
services. In addition to ensuring the reproductive success of native plants,
many of our crop plants depend on bees and wild pollinators for fruit set.
Invasive species may also exploit native pollinators for ensuring fruit set.
Because the technical literature on bees is quite complex, I have
summarized the most important elements of this literature as it applies to
Florida. In addition to a literature review, I have used the collections at
the Florida State Collection of Arthropods to obtain county records, dates
of flight in Florida or over the entire range, plants visited in Florida
from label records and polylecty (collecting pollen from many species) vs.
oligolecty (collecting pollen from one or a few closely related species). A county map showing
the distribution of vouchered specimens of the species in Florida is provided for each species.
Collecting in Florida is inadequate to
provide a full county by county resolution. Many species are likely to be
found in additional counties.
Keys taken from the literature (Michener 2000,
Mitchell 1960, 1962, others listed in text) are provided for identification of families of bees, genera, and
species (both males and females). These keys are based on complete keys to
all Eastern species or from a full revision of the group by other
scientists. Full descriptions are not provided but references are listed for
each species where a full description can be found.
Digitized photographs of many of the species
are provided, with highlights pointing out key characters used in the keys.
Some taxa do not yet have photos and others have photos of only one sex. As
additional specimens are collected or obtained on loan, additional
photographs will be added.
Biogeography and Conservation of Bees in Florida
The vast majority of bees found in Florida are species that have more
extensive distributions to the north of the state. Some are widespread
across the United States while others are restricted to sandy areas of the
Southeastern Coastal plain (e.g., Perdita species in the Andrenidae). Florida has a relatively large number of endemic
species and subspecies. Many of these are color variants such as Anthidiellum
notatum rufimaculatum versus the more northern Anthidiellum
notatum notatum. Many of our endemic subspecies have darker
red coloration that usually is yellow further north and often the
coloration is more widespread in Florida. Another color difference is seen in the three
genera of sweat bees that are very common in Florida (Augochlora, Augochlorella,
and Augochloropsis). In most of Florida, these bees are a bright
green in color. In the southern most counties such as Miami-Dade, these
species are bright blue. Causes of these color differences may be related to
soil temperatures encountered by the larvae during pupation although they
have not been well studied. Several endemic species have been described on
the basis of a single or a few specimens. The status of these species and
their conservation is unknown for most of them.
Relatively few species are shared with the Caribbean islands of the
Bahamas and Cuba. Three to four exotic species of bees are found, three
restricted to South Florida, with Apis mellifera (the
honeybee) found throughout Florida. Distributions outside of Florida are
sometimes mentioned in the species references. If not, full ranges can be
found in the key references cited for each genus. Florida has a relatively
large number of species that are also found in the desert southwest and that
extend their ranges eastward primarily along the sandy outer coastal plain
of the Gulf states. A few species are disjunct in their distribution, with
populations in Florida and elsewhere only in Texas or the Southwest.
The conservation of bees requires that bees have the appropriate soil or
vegetation conditions for nesting, that host plants have flowers present
during the period of flight, that bees that have specific pollen
requirements have flowers available during the period of flight, and that
adult bees are not exposed to excessive mortality agents during flight
(insecticides, fire, hurricanes, predators (spiders, beeflies, etc.). Many
species of bees have natural parasites, including other bee species that may
periodically limit bee populations.
It is likely that most of our species of bees in Florida have viable
populations, both in protected natural areas and in areas heavily modified
by humans, including cities and agricultural areas. Relatively few surveys
of bee communities have been conducted in Florida. Surveys of southern
Florida include Graenicher (1927) and Pascarella et al. (2000). Deyrup et
al. (2002) recently published a
systematic surveys in central Florida. Recent work
by Pascarella, Buchmann, and Donovan in forest ecosystems of North Central Florida and the
Florida panhandle have found considerable differences in bee community
structure from the southern wetlands of the Everglades.
Key References Mentioned in this website
Michener, C. D. 2000. Bees of the World. Johns Hopkins University Press,
Baltimore, MD, USA. 913 p.
Mitchell, T.B. 1960, 1962. Bees of the Eastern United States, 1:1-538
(1960);2:1-557 (1962). North Carolina
Agricultural Experiment Station Technical Bulletin 141, 152.
Technical Details
All digital photographs of preserved specimens were
taken using a JVC GC-QX5HD Digital Still Camera mounted on a Leica GZ6
stereo dissecting microscope. Images were modified using Adobe Photoshop 5.0
Limited Edition image editing software. Images and text were created using
Microsoft Front Page 2000 web authoring software. County distribution maps
were created using ESRI ArcView GIS 3.2 and exported as bitmaps which were
then saved as GIF or JPEG images. Most images are in JPEG format although a
few are in GIF format.