Always a challenge to shoot bees on geraniums. But I sure like to. This is one of my favorite flowers. They seem so optimistic to me…and they persist for so long (blooming, not the individual blossoms). They do, though, tend to sprawl and wander and look a little ratty if left to their own program. The bees love them, though. And the blossoms themselves are really pretty.
Tag: Geranium
Buzzalope
Seriously. Look at the faux antennae/antlers. Looking forward to this geranium blooming again.
More flurries today. Just swirling around, not sticking. Thought the light and weather might be great yesterday to go photograph wild mustangs on the west desert yesterday. Roads thick with mud and the sun blasting down. Go figure ;). Great to get out and shoot, though. Hoping to do that closer to home – with bees – soon.
If There Is a Best, There Must Be a Worst
Great bee. Worst crop in more than a year. But it is what it is. And the geranium is great…as is the bee. Just the composition is abysmal. But…have to run out quick again. The notion of time management seems to be absent today ;)!
Pollenback in the Geraniums
Again in the Geranium x cantabriginese – ‘Biokovo’ is the white and ‘Karmina’ is the pink – so it’s Karmina today. The focus on the buds on the right side is nice as is the pollen on her back. Such a magnet for pollinators, too!

Honeybee on a White Geranium
Nice face and antennae on this one. She’s cute. This one’s from June last summer. As far as it goes, the honeybees are really fond of this one – seems moreso than any/all of the other geraniums in the yard. Two colors – one white and one kind of pink.
For the record: Geranium x cantabriginese – ‘Biokovo’ is the white and ‘Karmina’ is the pink. Get some. They’re a little wild, but the bees love them!

Tiny Sweat Bee in Rozanne Today – Supercute!
This geranium’s blossoms are just a bit bigger than a U.S. quarter dollar coin. I think that’s about 24cm to the rest of the world. Two pics today. First of the entire blossom with the bee – for scale. Second is a tighter crop so that you can see the detail on the bee. Tiny, gorgeous little critter – with bonus beeneck. The sweat bees delight me.


Into the Geranium (Rozanne, I think)
Most of the posts that I make on here are from the gardens here. And so you see a lot of the same flowers. Might get a little tedious, but it is (after all) a bee every day.
So something to notice – patterns. Every flower throws its pollen and provides its nectar in its own way. And the bees adapt their techniques a little to get at it. That one sedum (don’t recall its name) really requires some odd contortion for the bee to get at the good stuff – resulting in lots of shots of beeneck.
And the geranium has its own unique configuration. They really have to go down deep into the center to get it. Hard to shoot. But fun to see.
Also look at the blossom. It’s near the end of its own cycle. Color starting to bleach out. Not the prettiest thing, but interesting.

Beeetongue in the Geranium
The bees were all over the geraniums yesterday. Think it’s Rozanne – the variety, I mean. So tough to shoot because the nectar, I guess, is where her tongue is. So getting a good angle on the shot is tough. But it’s about the only blossom on which I get this posture (or shape) consistently. And I think it’s a neat one. Pretty bee today…down to her extended tongue and pollen on her face and eye. Even a little bit of interesting focus on the geranium itself.

A Russian(?) on Rozanne the Geranium
I think this dark one may be a Russian Honeybee – or at least have some Russian in it. They tend to be darker than the golden European ones. Guess they mix them sometimes, too, for heartiness. Tough to shoot bees on this geranium because the good stuff is deep inside. So there’s not much of an opportunity to get their faces when they’re working. Note the shadows of the anthers on the petals. Neat.

Great Tongue on a Geranium
Note where her tongue is. Makes them kind of hard to shoot on this geranium (Rozanne?) but they circle around pretty quickly and sometimes give me a shot. I really like her face and eye and tongue in this one. Almost archetypal to me.
