Scott Seidman wrote:
Trodding back to my car from a day on the water, I was passing through a
phlox patch, and saw what I thought was a large honeybee gathering nectar.
This might seem quite stupid, but I'm pretty sure it was not a honeybee.
It seemed to be about twice the size of a honeybee. The wing beats were
extremely fast, and it darted about more like what I think of in a
hummingbird-- very good hover, rapid darting pattern with extremely sudden
stops. There were some prominent yellow and black stripes on the back,
where an abdomen would want to be--maybe two yellow and one black.

I didn't get a close enough look to categorically say there was no beak, so
I can't be sure, but I thought I saw a rather prominent probiscus for
nectar collection-- maybe some sort of odd moth??

I was with somebody else, and neither of us would identify this as a bee.
Any ideas? I'm in Western NY, if that helps.



Probablt a clearwing moth. See
http://www.birds-n-garden.com/snowbe...ird_moths.html

Not sure yours would be same species, but the family would be the same.

Also, see photos at


http://www.naturalsciences.org/funst...bird_moth.html

also scroll down to at least the third photo on
http://www.whatsthatbug.com/clearwing_moth.html

Tim Lysyk