Peponapis pruinosa, commonly known as the squash bee, is a specialist pollinator of plants in the genus Cucurbita (a.k.a. squash, pumpkins, gourds, zucchini, among others). Over the past several weeks, members of the López-Uribe lab visited 19 pumpkin farms throughout central and eastern PA to collect squash bees, bumble bees, and little green sweat bees! These three species, in addition to honey bees, make up approximately 90% of the bees that visit pumpkin and squash flowers. In total, we […]