I’d been mistakenly calling these tiny metallic-green bees Cuckoo Wasps, because they look similar to that family. Plus the name cuckoo wasp is just more catchy. I was surprised to see that what I have is evidently Augochlora pura, in the Sweat Bee family. (I thought of sweat bees only as those tiny brown bees that I never forgave for stinging the back of my knee when I crouched in a meadow as a child.)Cuckoo Wasps lack a stinger and usually curl into a ball when harassed. So if you finger a small green bee and it stings you, it’s probably not a Cuckoo Wasp.
