Insect Family Anthophila (Bees)

Bees are never really regarded as an important trout food by anglers, but many flies (dating back to old winged wet flies) have been named after them and tied as imitations. Trout do eat plenty of bees, although they're rarely if ever a major portion of any trout's diet. Even the Royal Coachman and its cousins are said to suggest the striped body of a bee, although they are surely not often mistaken for bees. Instead, the striped pattern is one that occasionally appears on food and rarely appears on inedible things in the trout's world, so it's one more entry on their long list of cues that might tell them a thing drifting by is at least worth a taste test.

Anthophila is an unranked taxon, somewhere in between a "family" and an "order," but I've listed it as a family here to hold any pictures I've taken of bees.