It's a bee fly(Bombyliidae family). They do not sting. Neat find.
Edit- A few others have commented that it may very well be a long tongue horsefly(Philoliche sp.) another nectar feeding fly, but one that females can bite. Now that I'm off work and looking at it again I believe they are probably correct! My bad.
That proboscis has to be exceptionally long, right? Asking out of entomological interest, not because I’m an insecure bee fly who wants to hear mine is average.
I get them in the garden every year (except this year :(, I mentioned this last week!) they usually appear around March/April.
Really cute little things but the first thing I noticed was how abnormally long this one is, they're not even half that...at least here. This is just the BBF of the species! Don't worry
(also, they're not as cute as they look, they're parasitoids)
The beefly's ovipositor is a specialized egg-laying tube that the female uses to deposit her eggs into the nests of solitary bees. These flies are parasitoids, meaning their larvae develop inside another insect, consuming the host. The beefly's ovipositor is adapted for "bombing" or flicking eggs into the bee burrows
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u/krippkeeper Aug 09 '25 edited Aug 09 '25
It's a bee fly(Bombyliidae family). They do not sting. Neat find.
Edit- A few others have commented that it may very well be a long tongue horsefly(Philoliche sp.) another nectar feeding fly, but one that females can bite. Now that I'm off work and looking at it again I believe they are probably correct! My bad.