On May 29, 8:19 am, 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.

--
Scott
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Around here, we have a species of hornet that looks like a honey bee,
but is about an inch to an inch and a half long. They suck nectar
from sweet smelling flowers and will chew into the bark of certain
trees to start a sap flow, which they lap up. One ate a hole in my
cap on time.

I presume they can sting. I know they can sure bite into stuff.

Steve,
Maryland