Li’l Bee
This fellow is about 4mm long and in the first few pix is collecting resin from a hole in a pine tree. I suspect it is for building material for the nest. There were more than one at the hole but as is often the case only one was at the right angle in the right place for long enough for a shot or two.
These are Australia’s native honey bee, known as sugarbag, and their honey is a luxury given their numbers and size – they don’t make it like the European honey bee that is twenty times its size and more active.
They don’t have a sting either so they are harmless by comparison, and they are too small for me to track back to the hive. That’s their advantage, too small to be threatened.
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Science often tells us how nature is robotic, that the creatures and plant life are no more than the sum of their parts plus function on auto. And it’s true, except for the ‘no more’ bit.
The ‘more’ they are is the same ‘more’ you and I are. It’s the inscrutable intelligence behind the structure of everything.
The unknown, the mystery before knowing is, before you and me.
The mystery, the no-thing, the pre-existent wordlessness before it all begins, and ends. As it is now.
The wonder, the beauty, the colour and light.
The deep, the black, the abyss – inside.
Home.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Nature's Place 
Mark,
I just wanted to let you know how much your photos move me. To tears, even. I am a park ranger in the US, and I spend a lot of time talking to visitors about the magic of insects and small creatures….most people think I am crazy, but I keep at it! I feel I am on a crusade of sorts, to convince people to search out beauty in the places we are told it cannot exist. It is easy to love a flower or a large mammal…they are things we understand. It takes some effort to look past the fear and alien nature of many-legged creatures, and appreciate the absolute magnificence of form and function. I am not a religious person, but sometimes the insects make me wish I were….
These are more than just photographs. Thank you for sharing your soul here.
Thanks for getting in touch Ranger. People don’t change easily – it will take their disappearance before ‘people’ appreciate what they’ve got, but don’t let it stop you. Enjoy it for you.
Not religious? You mean not a believer. Real religion starts in seeing the wonder and beauty in the apparently insignificant, a cognition of the supernormal – since most don’t see it but it is available to them. Keep going! And take it easy. ((:
Thanks guys.
You have such amazing pictures! Good work!
A beautiful little bee there Mark and fantastic captures. Quite amazing anatomy shown in the third frame.
Interesting to see the difference in colouration Mark. In the first picture there is something orange on the one foot? Maybe a mite?
Without insects, we would not survive!!
Have a good weekend. I am off to the bush for 2 weeks and hope to get some good shots. Found a very interesting spider (unknown) today and something which looks like a caterpiller but I do not think it is. It is so small, I could hardly see it, about 3mm in length.
Hi Joan. It could be a mite, I have seen lice on many creatures around this place. It is absurd the way insects have been demonised, but not surprising given the short-sightedness of vested self interest and man’s emotional condition.