Metallic Sweat Bee

Down at Pinnacles Park about an hour and a half south of me, there is one of the most diverse population of bees on the entire planet. There are around 400 different species of bees in the space a little smaller than the size of San Francisco.
There are steep hills and places to walk and many different flowers on the hillside- blues, yellows, pinks, purples- it's like a city for bees.
This one is the Metallic Sweat Bee.

I just really liked the name of it. There's got to be some use for the name "Metallic Sweat Bee". It seems like something from some kind of science fiction Star Wars robot society setting. It's actually a very pretty insect, although my first attempt at putting images on my blog didn't really show it in its best light. There are some much nicer pictures of it at a site called "What's that bug?"
Another interesting bee at Pinnacles is below:


This is the leaf-cutter bee. I was able to get a better picture of this one. These are solitary bees that build their own nests in rotten logs by carefully cutting pieces from leaves and using them as building materials for their nests.

They say that May is the best time to go down there and see the bees, when all the wildflowers are in bloom. That's pretty soon. I'll let you know if I make it down there, and if I do, I'll try to take pictures.