Over the last two years, I've been working with the artist Noel Pugh on a Guide to Common Bees of California for the University of California Press. We envisioned something you would want to keep in your garden tool bag or back pocket when out for a hike that would cover the biology of the most common genera that we find here in California (which also means the keys and descriptions work for everywhere in the US).
We also included some tools, not quite keys, that will help in sorting out the different groups of bees. Well, the copies arrived yesterday and I couldn't be more pleased! Noel's drawings look amazing and best of all, it really does fit in the back pocket of my jeans.