Wearing of the Green

Bug Squad

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Happenings in the insect world

Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey

Published on: March 16, 2012

It's St. Patrick's Day tomorrow and time for "The Wearing of the Green."

"The Wearing of the Green" is actually an Irish street ballad dating back to the Irish Rebellion of 1798. The author: anonymous. The color of choice: green. Members of the Society of United Irishmen wore green shamrocks to display their loyalty to the rebellion.

Now take insects. Tomorrow, if you're lucky, you might see some "wearing of the green." But not likely, unless you're visiting a museum and see pinned specimens. The metallic green sweat bees, Agapostemon texanus, aren't out yet in this part of the country.

Very striking, they are. The females are all green. The males are partly green; their head and thorax are green, but not their abdomen.

Still, Saturday, March 17 is a good day to think green!

Male green sweat bee, Agapostemon texanus, nectaring on a seaside daisy, the Erigeron glaucus Wayne Roderick at Tomales Bay. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Male green sweat bee, Agapostemon texanus, nectaring on a seaside daisy, Erigeron glaucus Wayne Roderick at Tomales Bay. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Close-up of metallic green sweat bee, a male. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Female metallic green sweat bee, Agapostemon texanus, at the Haagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Tags: Agapostemon texanus (9), Haagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven (90), metallic green sweat bees (1), sweat bees (8)

Comments: 1

Comments:

by Pokyzard

on July 11, 2016 at 11:37 AM

While helping out my mom to take down some lights in our backyard after a party we saw one of those bees amoung purple flowers, I pointed it out to my mom ad we never seen a bee like that and she photographed it. We live in Canada and according to this post the bee was male. :)