This has been a spring of sweat bees. Before this spring I was really only seeing pure green sweat bees, but recently I also found a smaller, similarly colored female brown-winged striped sweat bee. The same afternoon that I photographed the brown-winged striped sweat bee, I also encountered a number of these ligated furrow sweat bees (Halictus ligatus). They’re also sometimes called ligated gregarious sweat bees. As you can see, they look quite a bit different from the metallic green sweat bees, but like the others, they are social bees and they’re good honey producers. They’re one of the most common sweat bees in the United States, and can be found from southern Canada and as far south as Columbia, South America. They can also be found in much of the Caribbean. Even though these bees aren’t a bright, shiny green, I still find them very attractive. I always enjoy watching bees, wasps, and butterflies making their rounds, sipping on nectar and pollenating the flowers that they visit.