Work has been slaying me this week so I will be brief with my descriptions. First up is this moody/ethereal composition of an Bumblebee on purple flowers. The Bumblebee is one of the more threatened so they will greatly benefit from bee-friendly, native flower gardening! .
Always Bee Smilin’ 😃🐝
If you happen to find a bee in your garden with a smiley face on it’s back, it just may be a little cuckoo! 🤣 Cuckoo bees get their common name from the fact that like the cuckoo bird, they lay their eggs in the nests of others who will unwittingly feed and raise their young for them. CORRECTION - while this looks a lot like the tribe epeolini cuckoo bees who also have “smiley face” markings on their backs these were kind enough to suggest the true identity of this “Bee” is actually a wasp in the family. Funny enough, I was leaning toward cuckoo bee for this critter based on somewhat similar looking images in their book but they commented that the cuckoo bees usually have more of a velvety coat.
Bee Psychedelic🐝
The third and last one is this Megachile leaf-cutter bee on an Indian Blanket flower. This capture was from a few days ago in late spring. The vibrant colors really jumped out at me and reminded me of a tie-dyed t-shirt so I enhanced the shadows with some blues to really complete the look.