Bee a fly and a hover

[lesno1]

[Geoff F]

No hover there, Les. The last one is a bee and my guess would be a honeybee.

When in doubt, check the antennae length. Short for hoverflies; although a few do have longer antennae they look different to bees.

[lesno1]

Thanks for the info Geoff very useful indeed

[DanK]

Les,

Here's something to make this more concrete.

Here's a photo of a honey bee. Note that the antennae are long and that all of the segments are cylindrical.



Many flies have antennae that are not only shorter; they are shaped very differently. The end segment, the flagellum, is flat and paddle-shaped. Here's an example:



Some flies have antennae without paddle-shaped flagella but that still look very different from those of bees or wasps. This is a type of robber or dancer fly, I don't know which (Geoff may);



Unfortunately, there are some that have cylindrical antennae that look more bee-like but shorter, like this one, which is one of the dominant species of deer fly in the Adirondacks:



However, all of the species of hoverfly I have managed to photograph, and all that I have seen clearly but haven't successfully photographed, have short, flattened flagella, as do houseflies, bottle flies, etc. (We have a lot of tiny hoverflies in our garden that are so small that I haven't seen their antennae.)

In the rare cases where the antennae aren't a give-away, there are others--the shape of the eyes, and the presence of only two wings.

Re whether the last one is a honeybee: I know nothing about bees in the UK. However, from what I have read and seen, bees that are native to the US (honeybees are not) have hairs around the compound eye but not coming out of the surface of the eye. Honeybees do have hairs coming out of their eyes, as you can see in the first of my photos above. So if yours had been taken in the US, I would have been confident that the last one is a honeybee.

Geoff can weigh in if I have any details wrong.

Dan

[Geoff F]

A small number of hoverflies, and some other flies, do have longer rather bee like antennae but never with an elbowed joint like bees; for example, the Chrysotoxum hoverfly family



Also regarding honeybees. Another clue is that long narrow outer wing cell on the leading edge.

I wonder if your Robber/Dance Fly, Dan, is one of the Empis species; but I don't know exactly which species you have over there.

[Tom Barry]

Really a lot of excellent macro photography and information here.

[Wavelength]

Great images