University of Victoria
Assistant Teaching Professor, Biology
Biology 184- Evolution and Biodiversity
Biology 186- Physiology and Cell Biology
Referenced on My Backyard Farm Project
I attempted to classify this bee by Googling “Black and White Bee” and this is the information I found:
Most people know that a yellow and black striped flying insect is a bee, but did you know that there are some very dangerous black and white bee types?
White-Banded Digger Bee (Amegilla quadrifasciata)
Unlike other furry black and white bee species, the white banded has several clear white stripes across its body against a black abdomen. https://8billiontrees.com/animals/black-and-white-bee/
I wanted to find another way to identify the bee so I emailed Dr. David Punzalan, University of Victoria, Assistant Teaching Professor, Biology.
This is his response:
June 13, 2023
Hi Stephanie,
It is hard to tell for sure but I think it is a type of leafcutter bee, or mason bee (family: Megachilidae), based on the video that seemingly showed a furry ‘underbelly’, and quite a few species have intermittent pale tufts/stripes on the abdomen. White-banded digger bees are European/Asian, I think and not present here. If you have still image, try uploading it to iNaturalist—it’s got some AI-based recognition software that is usually pretty good for narrowing down the ’suspects’ most plausible in a given geographical region.
Less than 24 hours after I had emailed and received a reply from a iNaturalist user account that had successfully identified thousands of bees and received my first confirmation of the Leafcutter, Mortar, and Resin Bees Genus Megachile
