A new bee…every day
Great pollen on the eye. Tongue is obscured by the flower, though. This one is in full bloom and really attracts bees of all kinds. Yesterday I saw two natives, a bunch of honeybees, and three different kinds of bumbles on this liatris. Gorgeous. And that’s a sunflower in the background above the bumble. Little pollen grains on its eye…
These flowers might be my very favorites for bees. Hard to say. Didn’t shoot for long yesterday, but I got some neat stuff on the blanket flowers – natives, bumbles, and some honeybees. Here’s one of those. Love the colors and the shape of the bee.
I really like bees on sunflowers. I like pollen buckets. And I like detailed beeface. Everything about this one smacks of late summer to me. Neat wing, too.
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This one’s from the neighbors’ back yard. Have shot at it in pretty bad light for the last three days. Need to get there a little earlier to minimize shadows, but I cannot seem to manage that lately. But…it’s just a remarkable plant. Cannot think of another that I’ve seen a wider variety of pollinators on. Bumbles, wasps, flies, honeybees, natives, etc. Really neat stuff. If I can find the time, I’ll do a big bonus blast of all of the different critters I shot on it. Maybe this winter?
Anyway…love this bee. Great beeface, beeneck, and beetongue. Plus a bonus, out-of-focus wasp. Neat plant.
Dang, it’s been cold lately here in the Rockies. 41 degrees this morning as I type this post. Rainy, too. Had a brief window in which a few bees were out yesterday and got this shot. Not my best work. But…I love beeface and you can see her tongue so clearly. And it’s fresh – shot yesterday. So there’s that. Hoping for better today, but who knows? Rained a lot overnight and projected high is only 65 degrees.
Not that I’m really complaining. Been a wonderful, cool, sometimes-wet Spring. A real spring. And the lavender is coming on…
Beeface.
I wanted to post another Nanking Cherry today because that’s what’s blooming now and where the bees are. But here’s a neat close-up of one on a sunflower stalk (from last summer). If I remember correctly, it’s been rotated 90 degrees to the right. It’s about the bees, right?
If you look at the stalk, you can see exactly how shallow the depth of focus is. Really one of the challenges of shooting bees. But lots of interesting parts of her fall in this slice of focus.
Great beeface on a Gaillardia Mesa™ Peach. Beautiful girl. Note the miniscule spider, too. For more on the Gaillardia as an wonderful flower for pollinators, see the February 11th post.
Love the eyes and face and tongue on this one. The geranium is called Rozanne® – and I’m not sure what I think about that ®. Guess it’s the way of the world. The geranium is fairly aggressive in that it spreads out however and wherever it can. But it blooms like mad – and persistently. The bees love it. Sometimes, when it’s in full bloom, it’s just throbbing with bee life. Humming. A good one for attracting bees.