Honey Bee Central
Individuals from three visits over the past month or so, where the creek crosses the track in Venman. They come in waves from the hive, fill up at the waters edge and home again.
Hunkered down on the side of the track, off the landing zone and out of the flight path, watching for any nearby bee at the right angle and situation for a shot or two.
Careful not to kneel or lean on one, don’t want to kill or get stung, dipping the lens tip to the water at times for a bees eye view. Hat on in case of accidents from behind, listening for the tell-tale buzz from what can’t be seen.
Air traffic observation. A flurry of landings, a scattering of take offs, coming and going in apparent confusion with rare collision until, all of a sudden, nothing. Quiet space.
A gap in the busy work of the bee, it seems, and the mind at work with them dies, no more to take my attention.
Time to look to the sense, in between.
Mind the gap …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click the pix for a closer look
*
*
Nature's Place 
Wonderful. I provided a whole tub full of water and water plants in pots right beside the hive but my bees prefer to visit a lone wet pot on the other side of the yard. I expect they have their reasons! It’s up to me to try to understand that reason.
Thanks Lissa. They might also be after minerals? I saw some bees at another place where they preferred the mud to the water.
That’s a possibility I hadn’t thought of.
Stunning as usual. What else can I say?
Thanks Lyle. Hmm, I don’t know … :-)
The more I see insects through your eyes, the homelier I find we humans. :)
We are the distillation of the best in the species that has gone before us, and still is. A simplification, but with the addition of the capacity for self reflection that is the source of all our vanities and insanities that covers over the original beauty being, is destroying the earth, and is our job to master – the real dominion we have over, read responsibility for, the things of the earth that we have yet to realise. Only humans have the potential to realise the ascent to a heaven, or the descent to a hell, and for all the unconscious things – but never homely I think.
I know, we do appear homely compared to our exotic relatives. :-)
Again wow!! They are such amazing creatures especially when you have the privilege of looking at them so close up! I dont think we would scrub as well : ))
Ha, ha … I’ve seen insects clean themselves more often and better than some people too, but the insects weren’t undergoing the throes or plateaus of evolving intelligence and the various ID entities one grapples with along the way – they, or more correctly the mystical purpose behind it all, can play havoc with ‘principles’.
These are spectacular. I’m glad you’re careful not to squash any.
Thanks Emily. Respectful of their tiny lives, it’s not too much …
Not sure what I liked most in this post, the photos or the prose. Both are rewarding in their own way.
Thanks David. I think of them both as elements of the one story. The third element is the observer who adjusts the two according to the inner landscape, within the space available for interpretation.
id love to see a full walk around of yourgarden mate.
These bees are from a nearby forest. Many of the creatures I photograph are from other than my garden, which is small and still relatively undeveloped for attracting small creatures. It’s winter here now so there is not much about, especially in my garden, but I am lucky to find them all the same.