yet more tiny sweat bees

[DanK]

You can see what we have around our house these days. Once I discovered all the tiny species of native bees in our garden a few years ago, I started seeing them everywhere.

We had a bunch more on yarrow this morning. They were very similar in appearance but very variable in size, ranging from perhaps 3mm to 6mm in length. I shot a bunch of both a smaller one and a larger one but lost track of which is which. Here are two shots, I suspect of the larger:





Then I found more of the tiny green ones in a peony. These are extremely hard to photograph, because they move quickly and tend to curl up, making it hard to get enough of them in focus when the flower was blowing around in the wind.. They are very small, perhaps 3mm in their curled position. These two images are not quite good enough to post, but after two days of failing to get a really good one, I thought I would post a few just for interest.





And appropos of nothing, here is a carpenter ant munching away in a rhododendron. I hope none of you have the misfortune of having to identify carpenter ants (we have had several infestations), but if you do, several of the signs are visible in this picture: the 'elbowed' antennae with right-angle bends, the single pedicle (the little thing between the thorax and the abdomen), and the smooth top of the thorax. It's harder to see another sign: a very broad, sort of heart-shaped head.

[Rebel]

Nice shots Dan, that bee is covered in pollen!

[marlunn]

Really nice images Dan, well captured under difficult conditions.

[Shadowman]

Nice set.

[Geoff F]

Yes, a lot of potential problems with those reflective surfaces have been well constrained.

[IzzieK]

Oh well, just letting you know that the last one is not a bee....or just a wanna-bee?

All excellent shots! I can almost taste the sweetness of the nectar of the flowers they are all on...except for the last one though...

[TobyMac]

Great shots! Well done!

[DanK]

thanks, all. Izzie--yes, I added the ant on a whim and forgot to change the title. It is a relative of the bees, however; they are all in the order Hymenoptera. I don't know if that makes them quite 'cousins.'

Geoff--I'd be interested in your thoughts about the reflections. I have been plagued by reflections on shots of some insects, like these and bottle flies, even though I use a highly diffused flash. In this case, I was using the rig below. So, why aren't the reflections bad in these cases, even though I did nothing special. They were shot at my standard 1/125, f/13, E-TTL flash with no flash compensation.

I think it may be because these shots were all taken in bright, open sunlight. Without a flash, that often produces mediocre images. However, I think the sunlight and flash balance each other. That is, the ambient light reduces the flash output, which reduces the reflection. And the flash reduces the impact of the ambient light on the final image quality.

What do you think?

[deetheturk]

Lovely captures Dan, as a Macro shooter I can very much appreciate the effort you have put into capturing these tiny Bee's, well done mate!