Right at your face! Look at those full, full pollen baskets. I love ’em in flight. And I love beeface.
And that Mesa Peach…keeps on giving…

A new bee…every day
Right at your face! Look at those full, full pollen baskets. I love ’em in flight. And I love beeface.
And that Mesa Peach…keeps on giving…
I really like their faces. They still confuse me a little because they look so different from different angles. Neat one today, though. Good look at her face and wings. Tongue, too.
2020 has been a hell of a year. If you do anything at all this weekend, please be kind to those in your orbit. Remain mindful of others’ humanity as well as your own. Not a lot we can do about a lot of things, but we can control how we behave – how we treat people.
I wish I liked all the pics I post here as well as I like this one. So many neat elements. I’ve seen so so many on salvias, but this one shows so well how she goes after it with her tongue. Great eye, too. And face.
Strikes me as I type how complex the bee is – then the hive – then the ecosystem is in which they operate. Such balance and equilibrium – and always self-correcting. Nudges here and there, maintaing balance. Could all be a bunch of yammering and confirmation bias about what I need to see in my own world right now…but there are lessons in observing (and thinking about) bees.
Or, as the Bard said:
… tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything…
As I like it!
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.