Tag: Gaillardia

No shooting again today. But some snowflakes. Here’s one from earlier this week on the persistent blanket flowers. They’ll be around for a while yet. Mid-60s next week so there’s hope for some more bee fun before winter overwhelms.

Once these start in the late spring, they just don’t quit. Here’s a great look at a honeybee in the blanket flowers which are in the (relatively) new parking strip garden. Sure it’s getting cooler. Sure it’s fall. But all of these lifeforms have no quit in them. Guess the hard freeze will knock them out, but that doesn’t detract from the point. They just go.

Loving the colors in this one. The background. The shapes.

One thing I’d like you to notice is the apparent age of the worker bee. Although the queens live five to seven years (give or take) the worker bee has a lifespan of just about six weeks after she leaves the hive and becomes a collector of pollen and nectar (she spends a bit of time before that caring for things within the hive).

If you look at this one, you might notice a couple of things: First, she’s lost most of her hair on her thorax. It’s nearly bare. That happens as they age. The next is the shape her wings are in. You can see that the ends of her wings are tattered. She’s literally worn them out.

Seems like such an archetypal shot for my bees. And it doesn’t need many words. Almost elegant. Love shots like this.

Some strange light on this one. Just another honey bee on a blanket flower. Neat echo of another flower there on the left. And some neat effects all through the shot.