Month: December 2021

Apologies to the international audience. A dime is about 1.8cm. The bee is probably .5-.7cm. Tiny, tiny, tiny. Smaller than a grain of rice. Sweat bee, and super cute. And stupid fast. Very hard to capture in focus. And even hard to see sometimes. It’s often the movement that gives them away.

Happy new year! I’ve kind of got a rant building up in me with the new year so close. But I’ll boil it down to two words: take risks.

Just my .02. Whether you do is up to you. YMMV (and if we’re speaking International English here, I probably should say, “your kilometrege may vary”). Ha! Wishing you whatever elevates and edifies you!

Not a bumble this time, but another neat shot on the clover. Liking the pinks that are apparent. And of course the bee is gorgeous.

Been stung only once taking bee pictures. In all the years (and you see how close I get). And that was when I put my hand down on a bee on a clover while I was trying to get a shot of another. Can’t really blame her.

I love these shots, though. And it feels good to shoot – eye level on my belly in the grass. Something neat about that.

Nothing particularly special about this one as far as it goes. But everything about it is special, too. The greens and purples seem such a nice combination. That pollen basket and those wings caught in blurs.

I capture so little of what’s around me with my camera. Looking at this shot this morning reminded me of it. “If a bee is on a flower and nobody is around with a camera, is there still beauty?” Kind of a bastardization of the “if a tree falls in the forest…” But the answer is a resounding YES. Reverberating yes.

Notice and exult. It’s there. It’s everywhere. And it elevates.

This is kind of a weird shot. Depth of focus key to it. And some bad shadows. But it’s pretty neat. I think that’s catmint they’re on. Kinda wish that one leaf in the out-of-focus foreground wasn’t so prominent. Nice effects otherwise.

That’s a thing about nature shots. Sometimes they are not always perfectly composed or lit or whatever. Things happen so fast (neither of these two were holding still…and it’s pretty likely that it was windy, too) that sometimes you take what you can get…and like it because it’s interesting and compelling. And this site seems to be just leaking metaphors. In other words, there’s a lesson in that.

Beautiful in its own way. Betting you are, too. Oh, those metaphors just ooze…

That one day that the queen goes out and collects pollen and nectar? Notsomuch. But the nod toward reciprocity – the idea that the boss looks up from the bottom (and hopefully gains some perspective) seems helpful all the way around. From the individual drones and workers (in every sense of the word) to the leadership itself.

Well, that was a small rant. And this is a neat bee on the way to Sedum Angelina. That eye is really neat looking. Enjoy…and happy Boxing Day!

Been a while since a bonus. But here’s one. From June on the cone flower.

Enjoy!

Neat shot in flight either going toward or coming out of a penstemmon. Nice little pollen basket filling…and those wings are neat, too. I don’t know if it’s true that bumbles able to fly “violates the laws of physics”. Check that…if it’s true, the physics legislature needs to reconveine. They obviously fly. But the broader point is, “wow, they fly”! Anyway, Merry Christmas! We’re on the upswing…and spring’s coming!

I’m pretty sure that these are daisies. I do know that’s a sweat bee. And a gorgeous one at that. And I’ll apologize again for being a terrible taxonomist and a fairly unreliable source of information. Seems that if I run a site like this, you ought to be able to rely on my identification of both the flowers and the bees. But, sadly, this isn’t the case always. And for someone who respects precision as much as I, it seems antithetical.

I’ve made peace with that trouble, though, in my own way. And that is: for me, this site is about posting a new picture of a bee each day. And on some days, even posting bees and flowers as art. Everything else is secondary and beyond. I’ve got so much on my plate otherwise, that to take a deep dive into taxonomy is beyond the scope of my resources. Or I choose to do other things, thereby making it beyond the scope. But shooting and posting neat pictures doesn’t seem to be. So…you get what you get. And I really do hope you enjoy what you do get here. I know I’ve enjoyed the initiative…coming up on two years now.

Also – Merry Christmas!

Was going through some shots from last summer and found a clover day that I had not seen. Really tickled me for some reason. And I was really fiddling with depth of focus that day. Here’s a fun one of a bumble with a nice pollen basket. Expect a few more clover shots in the next week or few. I’ve got some neat ones.