Photographing & Describing Colorado Native Bees
According to the 2024 Colorado Native Pollinating Insect Health Study (thanks to data from the CU Museum of Natural History Entomology Collections Manager, Virginia Scott), 1,006 bee species have been documented to occur in the state of Colorado.
Colorado is home to 1,006 different species of bees.
Armstead et al., 2024
In 2011, Virginia Scott and colleagues published The Bees of Colorado, with a count of 946 species. The most up-to-date species list (with all 1,006 species) may be accessible online somewhere. I’ll be searching and will likely contact Virginia Scott anyway. Until I obtain the up-to-date list, I will be utilizing the 2011 publication as my species list.
This page will document my journey to photograph the many native bees in our beautiful state, while also sharing what I learn about each species during the encounters. I may even utilize my cartography skills to visualize Colorado species record locations. Page 42 of the Colorado Native Pollinating Insect Health Study contains maps of the known bee species richness per county.
The diversity of bees surpasses that of honey bees and bumble bees!
As someone who has worked on many outreach initiatives to teach the public about insects, I often ask the people I encounter what bee species they can think of. The response to this question is not surprising, with most people saying honey bee (referring to Apis mellifera) and a few saying bumble bees (Bombus species). These bees only represent one (family Apidae, pg 3) of the six families of bees that occur in Colorado. As someone who is extremely passionate about bee biodiversity, I find this sad.
Colorado is also home to species representatives from the bee families: Andrenidae (pg 2), Colletidae (pg 4), Halictidae (pg 5), Megachilidae (pg 6), and Melittidae (pg 7).
