bee natural history/ID

[Doug Yanega]

>A friend gave me some bees that were collected from _Calochortus
>macrocarpus_, the sagebrush mariposa lily, in eastern Washington.  One
>species, thought to be the primary pollinator, seems to be an anthophorid.
>A number of individuals of the other species, which I think is a
>megachilid, were found dead in the flower, an odd occurrence in the mind of
>the collector (who's a botanist).
>
>Is anyone on this list interested in this?

There are several "Anthophorids" (the family has been sunk within Apidae
now) recorded as Calochortus visitors, but none known to specialize on the
genus - the apparent known specialists are a Halicitid, Dufourea
calochorti, and an Andrenid, Perdita calochorti. A good resource for anyone
with questions such as this, as to whether the association has been
documented, is the Krombein, Hurd, et al. "Catalog of Hymenoptera in
America North of Mexico", which has an extensive index of floral hosts.
I'll gladly attempt to ID your bees for you, but I'm leaving Champaign for
a few years studying Halictids in Brasil after Labor Day, so you'd have to
send them fast!
Sincerely,

Doug Yanega       Illinois Natural History Survey, 607 E. Peabody Dr.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA      phone (217) 244-6817, fax (217) 333-4949
 affiliate, Univ. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Dept. of Entomology
          http://www.inhs.uiuc.edu:80/~dyanega/my_home.html
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82