Insect Die-off

Observation: Unknown bee species - Cheesh'na Tribal Council office a staffer here may have taken a picture of a killer bee. The temp today is hovering right on the edge of 80 degrees. Yesterday I checked at 5 pm and the read was 78 degrees so my guess is that it did reach 80 degrees yesterday. I noted on May 19th as being right at 80 degrees, so today would be the third day running that we touched 80 degrees on two different thermometers in the community. Although new fuzzys have been suspected and expected for a long time, this seems to be the first for our neighborhood. None of us are bee experts of course, nor are we versed in creepy crawlies but what we are seeing is what we know. The pictures of the dead bees on the car roof takes in a little more speculation as to cause and effect… in short bees don't show up in Chisto in midway then die in bunches on top of cars…at least not the bees we know! What is the insects range etc. of killer bees? Also mentioned was that it may be a Digger bee.

Consult: We sent this post onto Jamie Strange at USDA for a consult. He writes, "At least one of the insects on the roof of the car is a water boatmen in the family Corixidae. I suspect the others are as well. These critters disperse in the springtime and will fly out looking for new bodies of water to colonize and live in. It seems that sometimes they mistake cars (shiny metal can look like water) for a pond and crash into them, killing themselves. I used to see this in WA when I lived there." Jamie polled some friends and Scott Black with Xerces Society wrote: "Water boatman, back swimmers and several species of aquatic beetle dive bomb cars. The thought is that the painted surface fools them into thinking it is water. We are also seeing this at some larger solar panels. Last time I was in Arizona I had a blue rental car and added a nice Dytiscidae (predacious diving beetle for you non-entomologists) to my collection after I heard the thunk on the hood as I was stopped for lunch. I do not think the car needs to be blue to have it happen as I have heard this multiple times."