Waving from a Tulip

I know she’s not. But sometimes it’s what it looks like. Been waiting a while for these tulips to both open and throw pollen. Still kinda cold today so the bees were sparse. But I found this little greedy one in this fantastic tulip. Check out that pollen basket on her. It’s kind of boxy-looking, but it’s huge. Getting kind of a ride’em beegirl vibe from this one. And they never last eight seconds. Always more work to be done. And that was a passel of mixed metaphors that made no sense. Apologies. I might be hungry.

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Laden over the Tulips Again

Very cool and windy and cloudy the last couple of days. So no bee shooting. This one is from a couple of days ago. And a common lament illustrated:

I resize these pictures to 1000 pixels wide (for lots of reasons, one of which is that they load faster on a phone). But when I do so (and when you look at them on your phone), you really don’t see what I see looking at a much, much higher resolution on a bigger monitor. So you don’t ever get to see what I get to see (unless you buy a large print, I guess).

So, as a counter to that today, you get two pics. The first that I’d post normally. Then a really zoomed-in version of same just showing the bee. As I see it. Enjoy. And thanks for indulging me. Oh, and look at the size of that pollen basket!!

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Quick Hit – In Flight over a Tulip

Check out that pollen mess. And the shadow. I really like this shot.

Posting today in advance of attending the Arts Festival in St. George, Utah. It’s on Friday and Saturday of this week. Really hope to see and meet some of you there! I’ve got a bunch of neat stuff including the bees that you’re familiar with as well as some wild mustangs, wildlife from a trip to Yellowstone, and a bunch of remarkable birds that I photographed this winter. Stop by if you can.

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Bonus – Spiders Do What Spiders Do

Looks like this jumping spider made a successful jump. She had a really hard time getting the bee out of the tulip. Wrestled and wrestled with it. Tried a lot of paths out. I watched for maybe five minutes and got distracted. Checked an hour or so later and she’d finally pulled the bee away to somewhere. She sure had a hard time exiting the tulip, though. I know photos like this disturb some folks, but it’s all part of the dynamic of the garden – the dynamic of this world. And it deserves to be noticed.

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Tulipa Ancilla and Two Bees Sharing It

This is a really neat tulip. A bit of a shorty, but the bees (and wasps) really like it. It throws a lot of pollen, too. Makes for filthy bees. But it’s really pretty, especially on the inside (as you can see). Lots of depth of color there. Won’t be long before they’re in bloom.

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Bee 078 – Tiny One in a Tulip

Normally, I prefer shots that show the eye. Seems to us humans that if the eye is in focus, the pic is in focus. Not sure I want to try to explain, but it just is. But sometimes, you get what you get with the bees. Kind of a neat shot.

Two things to notice: First, beeneck. Tickles me every time I get that little bit of white. Seems so small, compared to the rest of the creature. Second, notice the focus on the pollen in the bottom of the shot. The pollen coats the entire inside, but is only in focus for 2-3mm in the shot. Fortunately, mostly in the plane that the be occupies. I’ve better examples of it, but again, it’s illustrative of the shallow, shallow focal plane.

This is a tiny tulip, btw. And a tiny bee.

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