Beautiful Bees

'Bzzz bzzz bzzzzzz' is the predominant sound in my front garden at the moment. Yesterday whilst the sun shone brightly all afternoon, there was a hive of activity around my pretty little purple flowers. I have no idea what they are called, but they are definitely purple and they are very pretty; they smell nice too. I guess that's why the bees like them so much.

This calls for my camera and most importantly, my macro lens!!

I really love Bumble bees. They are so cute and fuzzy and I have fond memories of them as a child in my grandparents' garden. I recall they lived in the cracks in the dry stone wall rather than the hives that my grandfather cared for. At the time it was a little confusing to understand why only the honey bees made the honey that we ate...

Although the bumble bees are adorably cute, they are *very* busy active little things and consequently a complete pain to capture on camera and even harder to get in focus without movement blur. The above two pictures were the absolute best I got in my brief 15 mins. I did get a number of empty flowers with little bee legs sticking in at the corner having just flown off!

These two bees were much more camera friendly and stayed still, but the wind was blowing and I kept getting in the way casting a shadow over them so whilst they were easier to get in focus I still had movement and lighting problems! I absolutely love the intricacy of detail on their wings and legs and furry little bodies. The top picture the bee was just taking off!

Now I'd love to know if this following shot is actually of a bee or a fly pretending to be a wasp/bee or perhaps it is of the wasp family but not a 'bee'? Who knows. It was very different to the others, it buzzed differently and it moved differently and, most importantly, it stayed very still for a long time so was much easier to capture. It was also on the pink flowers not the purple ones....

Bee bottoms are particularly cute don't you think? I couldn't decide which of the following two photos I liked best and thought as I was putting far more on than normal I may as well show both and let you decide.

This last shot is by far my favourite. I know you can't see the bee very clearly but it's the most artistically satisfying for me.