Megachile petulans, f, back, Charleston Co., SC

Leaf cutting bees like this Megachile petulans are found around this world. Common and often nesting in holes in wood, some made by our wood boring beetle friends and some made by people (consciously or unconsciously). I am presuming that M. petulans is also a hole nester, but haven't tracked down anything specific (If you were bored you could spend you summers simply describing the nests of bees...many remain undescribed). This is a southern bee that appears to be moving to the north. We have been picking up more and more records in Maryland, which a decade ago, had no records. But, then again, no one was looking. Plant something native in the Aster family and in the Pea family and you will be feeding this bee's babies.Collected in the watermelon fields of Charleston, SC by Mimi Jenkins and photographed by our own Kelly Graninger. Photography Information: Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200 Best over all technical resource for photo stackingextreme-macro.co.ukUSGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.