Welcome to the World of Bees!
My name is Melissa and I'm a master's student doing research focused on bees. Hence the website name: Mel the Melittologist! The goal of my website is to present information on bees in one centralized place. The pages on this site are meant to help everyone appreciate the biology of wild bees, identify bees that may be common in your garden, learn how you can help wild bees, and to keep up to date on current bee research.
I'm constantly working on more blog posts and new main pages. Stay tuned for more content!
My blog! This is where I highlight pollination research, talk about specific bee species, create regional bee spotting guides, and more!
Learn about about the various bee genera! A genus (plural: genera) is a group of closely related species. Included here are groups like bumble bees (Genus: Bombus).
This is where you can learn general information about bees. Everything from the lifecycle of bees to ancient bees and even bee stings.
These pages will have guides on identifying insects, identifying bees from other insects, and how to identify some of the different types of bees.
Bee Species Highlight!
Bombus vosnesenskii
Commonly known as the yellow faced bumble bee or the Vosnesensky bumble bee. This bumble bee is common on the west coast of southern British Columbia, Canada down to California, USA. This bumble bee is a generalist pollinator and can be seen on white clover, lupines, foxglove, and lavender. It is also found in urban parks and gardens, agricultural areas, and mountain meadows (Williams et al., 2014). This bumble bee looks very similar to Bombus caliginosus which is commonly known as the obscure bumble bee (Williams et al., 2014).
Ref: Williams, P., Thorp, R., Richardson, L., Colla, S. (2014) Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide.
Photo credit: "Bombus.vos_4594sq" by JKehoe_Photos is marked with CC BY-ND 2.0.