Bees, Bees, and More Bees

Yesterday I finally made another trip over to visit Michele's garden. There is still a lot going on this time of year. Just like last year, the remaining bees and butterflies are visiting the sedum blossoms and other flowers in her garden to get the last bits of nectar for the season. I got a relatively early start and it was fairly cool overnight. I think that made the bees a little lethargic and that helped me get set up for photos.

There were several different species roaming over the plants. I focussed on the larger bees as they were moving more slowly. This bee (maybe a carpenter bee?) was the same species I saw last year. The green pattern in the eyes and the yellow mark on the front of the head is pretty distinctive.



Here is a close-up of the head. I was using a bare flash for fill so you can see some glare on the eyes. Reflected light next time.



Below is another type of bee I saw. In this photo you can see the additional 3 eyes on the forehead. I used a fill flash on this macro as the plant was in partial shade. Click here to see a larger version of the photo below. I think this is my favorite of the bee macros.



Here is a side view of the same bee.



You can see a bunch of bee photos in the Flickr set here.

Bending the Stalk

This bee was so large, the stalks of the coleus were bending under its weight. The light was a little flat through a thin cloud layer, but I like this photo anyway. I also got a couple shots of a Silver-Spotted Skipper on the same plant that you can see here and here. I like the second Skipper photo with the red leaves in the background.

Green Eyed Bee

The Sedum blossoms were wide open at Michele and John's place last week. The plants were loaded with bees and butterflies! Seeing several bee species side by side made it much easier for an insect newbie like me to pick out differences. This guy was on the big side and the green eyes with the distinctive dot pattern really made it stand out from the others. I didn't have bright sun that day, but I thought this image still turned out OK. See other photos of this bee in the garden photoset on Flickr. I also added some images of a clematis.

Update on 9/11: after a bit of looking on the web, I think this is a carpenter bee. Can anyone confirm that? This view showing the shiny black abdomen is one clue and I did see some other images on the web showing this type of eye -- but others not. Maybe a species difference? Still not sure why the compound eye exhibits this dot pattern. Is it the angle the light is entering/reflecting off the various cones?

Lots of Stingers

Continuing with the garden photo posts, here is a selection of bee and wasp photos I took while looking around. They were more interested in the nectar than they were in me. Lots of activity! Click on an image to see a larger view or go to the Flickr set here.