A new bee…every day
Are you sensing a theme? If not, you’re not paying attention. It is: whatever is in bloom at the moment.
Winter will be more random, I’m sure. And probably pretty aster-heavy again. But here’s an upsidedown native on a sunflwer. Love the eye. And the mustache. Interesting look at the bee and the flower for sure.
At Art in the Square (which really wasn’t in the square…got Covidmoved) in Fort Collins, the booth to my west was occupied by a woman called Michelle. She creates really super dresses (and fabric and who knows what else??) out of natural materials, dyes, etc. Check out her stuff at www.livinganddyeing.com. I don’t have the legs for it, but I’ll bet you’d find something that you’d love.
Anyway… On Saturday morning before the first show, she’d cut some wildflowers in her yard and brought them to her booth in a vase. The fresh-cut flowers attracted all kinds of bees – so being who I am, I grabbed my camera and started clicking. I printed this one overnight and gave her a copy on Sunday morning. Neat shot. Neat effect. Like it lots:
Apocryphally (I didn’t hear it myself), another photographer mentioned that he drives halfway across the country to shoot a landscape – and the bee guy just wanders over to the next booth… Made me smile ;).
Fun that I can fall down my front steps, camera in hand, and land amid flowers and bees.
Beautiful face and eyes. Nice wings, too. Not much I don’t like about this shot. Seems to capture the critter perfectly in its element – doing what it does.
Similar to yesterday but different. Only the bee was lit up for a second as you can see. One of our natives here in Utah. Great eyes!
It’s on a cone flower, btw. Don’t know why I said aster initially.
An absolute favorite of mine. It’s starting to look a little ratty now, but there are also a lot of new buds on it. It will go until late Fall.
In other news, the parking strip is now devoid of grass – and I’ve been told that I have six or seven more of these on order. Hope they get established quickly and will bloom this season.
That’s a sweat bee, btw. Note the lack of pollen bucket.
Two natives on one of the new blanket flowers. Although I’ve seen a few honeybees on this one, it seems to attract the natives, mostly. Love the green on the red and yellow. Seems such a natural fit!
I don’t think this one is a sweat bee, but it looks rather like one. But I don’t think the sweat bees have such pronounced pollen buckets. And this one’s are full full full. Such a beautiful creature. I also like the shadows on the flower in this shot. Neat bee!
Have only seen one honeybee on this flower so far – published a couple of days ago. If there’s a bee on it, it’s going to be one of these… Or a green carpenter bee. They generally run several counter-clockwise circles around the flower in their pollen collection. And I am most fond of the side shots in which you can see their eye. Tho there’s something to be said for a canted face shot, too!
My bee identification skills are abysmal. Very different green metallic bee today. Note the abdomen vs. yesterday’s bee. The one yesterday was dark and light striped – whereas today’s is metallic. Both neat for sure. Also like the the blossoms side-by-side. Such pretty things – both the bees and the flowers. The pink with the green is a neat touch, too.
But not, fortunately. Those of you who went through the 100+ bees day of May 10th saw a lot of asters. Now more today.
But these are Spring asters. Not something I’ve had before. And a really neat little native in them. Including two pics from the same bee today. Looks like a sweat bee, but I don’ think it is.
