What are these???

[ablanton]

Anybody know what this is?  I'm baffled!  There were two of these.  They were extremely DARK, slick, and shiny bees.   Looked NOTHING like the other bees in the hive.  My girls seemed extremely interested in them and followed them around grooming them.  I've never seen anything like it.

Apologies for the poor quality of the photos.  Didn't have my camera and had to use my phone.

[Jen]

We have carpenter bees here, they're huge, black and shiny. they can drill close to a half in hole in the side of a house to make a nest.

[ablanton]

We have carpenter bees, also; but, that's not what these were.  They were about the same size & build as a honey bee.

[Jen]

Very interesting how your bees are grooming this bee

[tecumseh]

I would guess this is a very old bee.  Like people they have less and less hair as time goes on and at some point they also tend to look very shiny. Quite often such bees are misidentified as german black bees.

[tbonekel]

I saw some like that as well back in march.

[ablanton]

Tbonekel - did your bees groom them and treat them like royalty, too?

[Jen]

Wow! soo cool!  I haven't seen a bee like this one yet. But I have seen old bees that were not black like this. Tattered wings, no fur. I love them for working so hard 

[tbonekel]

Tbonekel - did your bees groom them and treat them like royalty, too?

I never saw that happen. Doesn't mean anything though. I only watched for just a couple of minutes, long enough to take a few pics.