Determining the sex of your bee is the first step to identifying it using this key, as females and males of the same species are often dissimilar in a number of characteristics, and are therefore dealt with separately in parts of this key.

The quickest way to determine sex is to look to see if your specimen has a protruding sting. If you see a sting, it is a female, as male bees do not possess a sting. However, many female specimens die with their stings not protruding from the metasoma.

So, in addition to the presence of a sting, there are two easy methods of determining the sex of bee specimens - you need to:

1) count the number of antenna! segments (including the scape and pedicel) - females have 12 antennal segments while males have 13

2) count the number of visible metasomal segments - males have six visible tergites while females have seven.

Native Bee Project