Honey Bee

Apis melifera

Image taken in White Canyon Wilderness, Pinal Co., Arizona.

More than likely this feral (wild) honey bee is Africanized. This is now true of virtually all feral colonies that are not tended by beekeepers. That these bees are so common could be a detriment to native solitary bees in that they compete for pollen and nectar at wildflowers. The bee in the photo is at flowers of Seep Baccharis, one of the Sonoran Desert's most important nectar plants for butterflies, flies and beetles, wasps as well as native hymenoptera (bees and wasps).