Barbara says: Right now for me biodiversity is about native bees. There are over 4,000 native bee species in North America, and most people don't even notice them. I went on an Earthwatch trip to Costa Rica where we studied bees, and I learned how hard it was to identify them without looking under a scope for many of the bees. I gained an appreciation for their diversity. The photo is, I believe, of a Lasioglossum species, a sweat bee that is about 3mm long, hardly noticeable like a gnat. In fact I was photographing a larger green bee (1/4 inch in size (half a centimeter)) when I noticed these smaller bees pollinating the stamen of a bee balm flower. I have another picture on my Instagram account showing the size of the stamen pictured here, [which] is 2mm.