Bad Mannered Bees

Yesterday evening when I went out onto the back porch to enjoy the summer night I didn't see any fireflies. I don't know why, but they weren't there. That was disappointing, but I don't know enough about fireflies to even speculate if that was a problem, but then late last night I saw that familiar green flashing on the window screen. There were fireflies out last night after all. So...

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Firefly. Yes, I know, all you can see is the glow, but that's the best part anyway.

Tonight when we came home this was on the front porch:

 It's not lit up because the porch light was on, but you can just barely see the glowing part.

 I had hoped it would spread its wings to fly so I could get that shot, which would show the light-up part better, but instead it did that infuriating beetle thing where it just dropped to the ground and scurried away.

Other Bugs:

 The daisy flea bane seems like the perfect flower for sweat bees; small bee, small flower. There were a lot of them on these flowers today.

 I saw the exact same scenario last week. The caterpillar was smaller then, but we've got a sweat bee and a caterpillar on daisy flea bane, with aphids in there, too.

You don't have to be a tiny bee to feed here, though. You could be a large wasp.

 What bugs do you see here?

There were several buffalo tree hopper nymphs on the stem of this plant:

 There was a caterpillar on a leaf, too.

 Gypsy moth pupa and caterpillar.

 Spittle bug

The milkweed is still popular with the bees:

 

 And this, which I think is a hard-headed fly, not a wasp, as it appears. I might have that name wrong...

There are plenty of flowers to go around, but sometimes the bees get kind of... pushy:

 Tiny bee feeding on milkweed flowers...

 ... and what's that blur on the lower right?

 Bye bye little bee.

 The same thing happened with the honeysuckle:

 Eastern tiger swallowtail, male, I think.

 Enjoying some honeysuckle nectar...

 ... and who comes along?

 So rude.

 

 I don't know what this is, but I am going to make a mostly uneducated guess, based on what I know about other bugs, and where I found this: I think this is the pupal case of a sawfly that has emerged and flown away.

 

In a similar vein, here is the shed skin of a white marked tussock moth caterpillar. Some caterpillars (like monarchs) eat the skin they shed, but it seems to me that the hairy ones don't. I don't blame them.

In addition to the firefly, there were a few moths on the front porch when we got home this evening, too:

Arachnid Appreciation:
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I don't think I have ever seen this kind of jumping spider before.

Quite elegant.

This spider looks like it's relaxing in an invisible hammock.