Ten Common Bees in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Melissa Platsko
Apr 12, 2022
6 min read

The bees that live within the city of Vancouver are active in the many urban parks and gardens! The easiest way to find bees is to look in a patch of flowers on calm, warm, and sunny days. These are bees that can likely be found throughout the Pacific Northwest, some identifying info on those bees, and information on which flowers you may find them on.

1. Honey Bees (Apis mellifera)

There are many managed honey bee hives in Vancouver, so there are many honey bees within all parks, gardens, and personal yards. Honey bees can be found in a large variety of flowers and emerge in March and are active until late October in Vancouver. Honey bees are typically amber, brown, or black in colour. Honey bees can be really amber, to mostly brown, to almost completely black, (even within the same hive) so using colour for identification is not a useful metric. Honey bees have a lot of hair on their thorax, but much less hair on their abdomen as seen in the photo. If you get a good look at a honey bees face, you can see that honey bees have hairy eyes (which is unlike all other bees in this region). Finally, honey bees have flattened legs. Honey bees can be found on almost every flower, so you'll find them no matter where you look.

2. Yellow fronted bumble bee (Bombus flavifrons)

The first of many common bumble bees, the yellow fronted bumble bee! This bumble bee can be found between April and early September. The yellow fronted bumble bee has pale yellow hair on its shoulders and typically has a band of orange in the middle of the abdomen with a black band on the very end of its abdomen. This bumble bee looks very similar to another bumble bee common in Vancouver: Bombus melanopygus. Bombus melanopygus is also known as the black-tailed bumble bee. If you are interested in the differences between these bees, I would suggest picking up this book. It is the one I use for bumble bee identification and has lots of great information.

3. Fuzzy-horned bumble bee (Bombus mixtus)

This bumble bee is found from April to August. This bee can be told apart from Bombus flavifrons because the orange hair (which is sometimes salmon or yellow in colour) is on the two most posterior segments of the abdomen. Bombus mixtus also has longer and more uneven hair compared to Bombus flavifrons. This bumble bee is medium sized, so it can be between 9-18mm in length. Bumble bees, in general, can be found on a wide variety of flowers including lavender, rhododendron, white clover, heather, california poppy, nootka rose, snowberry, and lupines!

Ellyne Geurts, no rights reserved (CC0)

4. The Yellow Faced Bumble Bee (Bombus vosnesenskii)

This photo shows the beautiful yellow-faced bumble bee. These bees are active very early in the spring (as early as February) and are active until mid September. These bees are very dark black with yellow faces, a yellow band on the front of their thorax, and a single yellow strip on their abdomen. Their hair is short and never shaggy. They look like they just came back from getting a haircut. These bees are medium large and queens can be up to 22mm in length! They are fairly common in urban areas, so look for these little beauties in your garden or in urban parks.

5. The Common Eastern Bumble Bee (Bombus impatiens)

The last bumble bee on this list. This bee is commonly found in Vancouver and I wanted to highlight its presence here because, as its name implies, it was introduced into BC. This bee has a black head, an all yellow thorax, and a single strip on the anterior most part of the bumble bee's abdomen. The bee is medium to large and is 9-23mm in length. This bee is increasing its presence in BC and extending its range from its original introduction from BC down the west coast. If you see this bee please consider snapping a picture and uploading it to inaturalist, a citizen scientist website. Click here to visit inaturalist, create an account, and start observing!

Daniel Atha, no rights reserved (CC0)

6. Nomad bees (Nomada)

This is a group of bees and not a species, but you'll see these bees a lot. Nomada species are commonly known as nomad bees or cuckoo bees. These bees look like wasps and are usually have a slender red or black body with yellow or white spots. They also typically have reddish antennae and legs. There are many different species which are difficult to distinguish, so that is why I have included the whole group. These bees generally parasitize Andrena bees. Nomada bees prefer thyme, buckwheat, yarrow, and English daisy.

"Little Nomada Bee" by treegrow is marked with CC BY 2.0.

7. The European Woolcarder bee (Anthidium manicatum)

This bee species is another introduced bee in British Columbia. Anthidium manicatum is typically active between May to August in Vancouver. These bees are very fast fliers and are mistake for wasps a lot because of their colouring. The European Woolcarder bee is a hairy belly bee and it has hairs on the underside of the abdomen to hold the pollen. In the picture, you can see a pale patch of pollen on the underside of the bees abdomen. These bees are stout and have bright yellow patches on their abdomen and face. Their thorax is mostly bare on the top and hairy on the sides. You can see these bees on lavender, purple toadflax, sage, and (as seen in the photo) bird's-foot trefoil.

"Wool carder bee (Anthidium manicatum)" by Deanster1983 who's mostly off is marked with CC BY-ND 2.0.

8. Orange-legged Furrow bee (Halictus rubicundus)

Halictus rubicundus is a sweat bee species native to British Columbia and much of North America. This bee can be seen from March to October in BC. Females of this species are generally charactierized by the orange hair on their legs, while males are more difficult to tell apart as they don't have the orange hair. The hair seen on the legs is for pollen collection, so the legs of female Halictus rubicundus can sometimes appear to be yellow and not orange. These bees also have white stripes on their abdomen, somewhat orange hair on their thorax and face, and are usually about 10mm in length. Halictus bees prefer heather, snowberry, dogwood, spirea, yarrow, Pacific ninebark, and aster species (like dandelions).

Daniel Chapman, no rights reserved (CC0)

9. Texas Striped Sweat bee (Agapostemon texanus)

This gorgeous bee is mistaken for a fly a lot of the time. This bee stands out because of its colour and they are easy to identify in Vancouver because of it. Agapostemon texanus is found between March and October in Vancouver. The female bees of this species are completely metallic green. The males have a metallic green head and thorax and a yellow and black striped abdomen. The females have long hairs on their hind legs to collect pollen as seen in the photo. The males have yellow and black legs with some short hairs. Agapostemon, both males and females, have beautiful green eyes! These bees have shown preference for calendula, california lilac, nootka rose, and Pacific ninebark.

"Bright Green and Brighter Yellow" by tdlucas5000 is marked with CC BY 2.0.

10. Western Leafcutter bee (Megachile perihirta)

Megachile bee species are called leafcutter bees because the females cut leaves up to line thier nests! Megachile perihirta is typically found between May and August in Vancouver. The Western leafcutter bee is another type of hairy belly bee. They are very fast fliers, so it's difficult to see one sitting still. The males are easier to identify than females because they have large fluffy forelegs, beautiful green or blue eyes, and a hairy face. If you manage to get a good look at the face of a male Megachile bee, they look like they have a mustache! These bees are stout (similar to the European wollcarder bee) and they have large manibles for cutting off pieces of leaves. They have a lot of pale hair and black shiny exoskeleton. Megachile bees have shown preference for yarrow, lupines, bellflowers, asters, white clover, and lavender.