Injection.

Again I’m focusing on Bee🐝 this week using the new 50mm macro lens. Capturing bees with this lens was a much bigger challenge than the dragonflies because although dragonflies are more skittish, they at least will sit completely still once they trust you. Bees on the other hand seem to never sit still unless you are lucky enough to catch them sleeping so with the slower focusing and closer distance required by this lens there were many missed shots along the way.

Most of my life I assumed that bees extracted nectar from the heart of the flower by either landing on the stamen or, on smaller flowers, by landing on the petals and sticking their heads into the flower tube and in both cases, reaching their tongues down through the stamen into the nectaries. Since beginning to photograph them I’ve as a result been studying them up close and I’ve learned that sometimes they go in through the side of the tube. This image is a really great illustration of that with this beautiful Carpenter Bee extracting the nectar from the side of this Black and Blue Salvia.