31 days of August

[cypher]

Thanks everyone, glad you enjoyed meeting some of my garden friends, I do love taking care of all of them, they're my second family after my hamily

Staying on the garden theme today…
Probably my favourite small furry after hams… bees!
I was stung by a bee as a very young child but I think it must have given me a shot of love potion as I've been passionate about bees all my life
If you don't share that passion you might want to skip a day or two!

I love how clever they are, here's one cheating & taking a short cut to the nectar in a honeysuckle flower.

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One of my favourite flowers, the Welsh poppy is a big hit with the bees too.

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Enjoying some echinacea.

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A bit of an action shot!

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Red tail bumble bee (not sure which one though!)

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[SKB_Hamsters]

Beautiful photos of the bees. Love the action shot photo! I also love bees - They are so cute and fluffy! And I also find they are very fascinating to watch pollinating the flowers in my garden. The other day I even saved a poor bee who got caught in a spiders web whilst I was watching a few pollinating some sunflowers - and as I'm not a fan of spiders so I decided to quickly rescue the bee before the spider noticed it was caught and it was so lovely to see the bee flying off to pollinate more flowers - he looked very happy to be free and not dinner!

[dreamtree1234]

Oh my, what amazing photos, Cyper! You truly are a great photographer - such detailed, close-up, and vibrant pics. I love absolutely every single one of them. It is so lovely that you are sharing your garden friends with us as well on this thread. Your garden and pond are truly a special, outside animal sanctuaries. Great job helping with the wildlife; I would do the same and love to spend hours just appreciating nature. How exciting that you not only have the occasional hedgehog, but you even had a litter in your garden! I live in the city so I've only seen them in nature when I go to an animal reserve or the zoo. You are SO lucky; I love these guys and think they are SO cute. I also love bees, dragonflies, and frogs. LOL, bees cheating and Artie being commended by the 'professional' frogs! I have an outside 'wild pet' bullfrog whom I named Sir Hoover after the Hoover Dam; I fed it mealworms and fish food and made sure to pour water in its home so he could survive in the heat.

SKB, I don't blame you for saving the bee from the spider; I would do it, too. I have a huge case of arachnophobia so anything being eaten by a spider will be truly tragic to me.

[AprilPearl]

Amazing bee close ups! They do look so fluffy.

I like bees, too. I remember crying after I was stung picking flowers as a child - not because it hurt, but because I knew that bees die after they sting someone (is this true or is it myth? I don't know).

[Thin Lizzy]

So love these pics, so love bees too. Your action shot pic is so wonderful. You're attention to detail is mesmerising.

[dreamtree1234]

ApirlPearl, only female bees can sting and only honeybees die after stinging someone. This is because honeybees' stingers have two large, backward facing barbs that make it impossible to remove their stinger from your skin without ripping out their venom sacs, lancets, stylus, etc. from their abdomen - resulting in their death. All other bees, bumblebees, and wasps do not die since their stingers are relatively smooth with only two, very tiny barbs allowing easy removal from their victim. Therefore, all bees and wasps other than the honeybees can repeatedly sting.

[Pebbles82]

I love the bee photos - gorgeous! Apologies for missing a few days - we've been away - I'll catch up with the thread soon!

[Ruth Edwards]

Loving these bee photos, Cypher. That's an amazing one of the bee getting the nectar through the back door of the honeysuckle. They used to do that with columbines in mums garden but we couldn't photograph them close.
Your action photo is brilliant. Looking forward to the next installment
Dream tree I want to hear more about your pet bullfrog? Did you give it a name? How big was it?

[cypher]

Thanks everyone, glad you enjoyed the bees, they are my absolute favourite photo subject so I have loads more, I'll share some later in the month.

SKB well done for rescuing your bee! I don't mind spiders but I think the bees need our help more than they do so I'm always removing pesky cobwebs that might get in their way too!
dreamtree thank you, I really am very lucky to have a nice size garden in a lovely rural area, not a day goes by when I don't appreciate that & do my best to make it a mini nature reserve

I thought I'd share a few more butterflies today, not all that recent as it's been more like a very wet November than summer here the last month or so but it's nice to look back & remember what summer should look like!

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[Thin Lizzy]

Such gorgeous colours of the butterflies and flowers.
Good on you SKB for rescuing the bee, I'd have done the same. I love spiders but I wouldn't want to see a bee being snared.
Cypher just seeing the creatures that visit your garden has me wishing I had a garden.