Sunday, July 12, 2015

Wet, Sleepy Bees and a Cuckoo


With the welcome turn to damp, cool weather, it's fun to find the bees sleeping in flowers, sheltering from the rain. The bumblebee is waving its front leg as a warning to me because I'm getting too close. You can see marks on the flower to the right of the bee where it has been clinging to the petals.


We found two little species of native bees sheltering in calendula flowers.


ZZZZZZzzzzz. . . .


We also spotted a bumblebee I've never seen before, which I believe is a cuckoo bee, Bombus insularis. She lacks pollen baskets because she lays her eggs in other bumblebee nests.


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