In celebration of World Bee Day, May 20, 2026.
The world of bees is amazingly diverse, with more than 20,000 species recognized to date. Work being done by one of our partner organizations, the Native Bee Society of BC, has helped record new species and brought the total known for our province to more than 600. Most of those species can only be identified by experts using microscopes, and their work is being used to build a BC Bee Atlas. Our area has lower bee diversity than Vancouver Island or the BC Interior but nevertheless we have much to see and learn close to home. Community scientists around Squamish have been using iNaturalist to report and provide preliminary identifications, working from photographs. Experts have confirmed at least 26 identifications to species based on these photographs.
Scientists have organized bees into six families, and we have members of five in Squamish. Here are some details.
The Apidae family includes our bumblebees, the honey bees (non-native!), and some species of cuckoo bees This family represents over 60% of the 900 bees reported to iNaturalist for Squamish, in 11 confirmed species.
Vancouver bumble bee, found west of the Rockies from California through Alaska.
This Olympia cellophane-cuckoo bee doesn’t look like a close relative of our bumble bees.
The Megachilidae, at about 130 observations (14%) is our next most represented family, and includes mason bees, leafcutters, woolcarders and resin bees. The only mason bee we’ve identified to species is our appealing little western blue orchard bee. We’ve confirmed nine other species, mostly leafcutters.
The tiny western blue orchard bee is an important pollinator for fruits.
A female golden-tailed leafcutter: other megachiles can be mistaken for this species because they have pollen on the tip of their abdomen rather than the golden hair we see here.
The Halictidae are the sweat bees, a family with considerable variation in size, shape, and colour. They represent 12% of our observations, but we’ve confirmed just two species, the orange-legged furrow bee and the fine-striped sweat bee.
Male orange-legged furrow bee: the orangish-coloured legs and the white patch on the face are distinctive.
Male fine-striped sweat bee with species proven by three characteristics: dark scapes (base of antennae), inflated hind femur, and green metallic reflection from dark stripes on abdomen.
The Andrenidae are commonly known as mining bees. We’ve observed fewer than 100 individuals in Squamish, about 11% of our total. This family also varies widely in size and colour. Most of these ground nesters emerge early in the season: an exception is our British Colunbia miner bee which we’ve seen a few times in August. We’ve confirmed one other species, the prunus miner bee.
British Columbia miner bee female: a seldom-observed species that emerges in late summer rather than in spring like most other Andrena. Wing detail helps confirm that this is an Andrena.
Prunus miner bee female: note the overall reddish appearance, dark wing tips, hair in facial fovea (grooves inboard of the eyes). This female also had a red “skirt” of hair at the tip of her abdomen, just visible here.
The Colletidae, the plasterer bees, are our least-represented family. We have just 14 observations. Most of those reported belong to the cellophane bee genus Colletes. We have just one confirmed species, the masked bee, which was introduced from Europe in about 1980.
A female cellophane bee, Colletes. Only three species occur in Canada and they are difficult to identify from photos. A heart-shaped face and a tear drop-shaped abdomen (as seen here) are characteristic.
A tiny punctate masked bee, distinguished by the yellow markings on its legs and the pale markings on its face. This species frequents a shrubby rock rose hedge every summer in my neighbour’s yard.
If you’d like to learn more, you might consider “The Bees in Your Backyard: a Guide to North America’s Bees“.
Thanks for caring.
Gwen, an interested amateur.
Banner photo: Two female bees from the Megachilidae family. At top left there’s a western leafcutter (our biggest and most commonly-identified of the Megachile) with at lower right a much smaller leafcutter who can’t be identified to species from this photo.