Bee hugs, textures, and education

The mornings are chilly here now, with temperatures usually between 35 and 40ºF (2-4ºC) when I wake up. This means that the garden residents that rely on the warmth of the sun take a little while to get moving.

This bee spent the night on his favorite flower. At least it seems like his favorite by the way he's hugging it so tightly.

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What this meant for me is a completely still subject for photos, and I took advantage of this.

I took so many photos that ended up being virtually identical, I decided to "salvage" the duplicates  by cropping them down to an interesting visual texture, and sprinkling them throughout here.

What I love most about being able to get this close to a stationary bee is the eyes -- so glassy!

As may be obvious, I didn't have much to say this morning. It turns out though that this simple post has increased my knowledge of bees.

I first wrote that this was a bumble bee, but a quick search on bugguide.net showed me that it is actually a carpenter bee. The white face indicates that it's a male, so I had to change all of the feminine pronouns in this post to masculine. One useful tip: since it is male it can't sting me (a bee's stinger is a modified ovipositor), so in the future I can pick these guys up if I wanted to.

I think I'll probably pass on that though, as I'd be afraid of hurting them with my brutish handling. So I'll just let them "sleep" and soak up some solar radiation so they can take advantage of the few remaining days of foraging.

Bee hugs, photo textures, and education -- a nice way for me to start my day!

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