Busy Bees

Today the dominant order in the backyard was Hymenoptera–bees and wasps. There seems to be kind of a feeding frenzy at this time of year, and there were many bees and wasps in the backyard, filling up on nectar and pollen from goldenrod, asters, and Japanese knotweed. I was only able to get pictures of a fraction of what I saw, so extrapolate from what you see here, and you will get a sense of how bee-zy it was in the backyard today.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Honey bee. I hardly ever seen honey bees. There is an apiary about a mile away as the bee flies, but most of the time they much have other sources of nectar, because I rarely see them in my backyard. They do seem to like goldenrod, though, so I expect to see more of them over the next couple of weeks.

 Its pollen baskets, the orange thing on its leg there, seem to be well filled.

Other Hymenoptera:

 Bald-faced hornet

Other Bugs:

 I think this is an assassin bug.

 Beetle

 While I was watching the wasps on the Japanese knotweed something fluttered down from the tree above, and for a moment I thought it was a leaf, but something made me take a closer look, and it turned out to be a katydid.

 Dragonfly

Yesterday's Backyard Bugs of the Day are still cozied up on their branch:

 Contracted datanas. I would love to know why they are called contracted datanas, but my caterpillar book doesn't have that kind of information.

 

 

 Fly

 Net-winged beetle

 Scorpion fly

 Crane fly. I love those eyes; I tried to get a closer shot of them, but the crane fly would not cooperate.

 I think this is a toad hopper.

 This is the first monarch caterpillar I have seen in a while. I couldn't stand the fact that all of the others failed to make it to butterfly status (as far as I can tell), so I adopted this one, and its in my dining room.

 Planthopper

 I don't think I have ever had a year with so many banded tussock moth caterpillars around, especially not the gray ones:

Backyard Amphibian of the Day:

I have been seeing a lot of frogs lately, which is interesting because in other years I have mostly seen them while mowing the lawn, and I have not been the one mowing the lawn this summer.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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