Bees

The bees were busy in all the yellow flowers.  A carpenter bee snacked on a yellow crownbeard.

A honey bee in the goldenrod.

 

Coming in for a landing

The carpenter bees were almost too big for the flowers.

 

Coming in for a landing

The bees were busy in the blue false indigo.  (see here)

Air Bee and Bee

This "Air Bee and Bee" is built for cavity dwelling bees.  They don't live in colonies like honey bees, they live individually in little tunnels.

This bee apartment gives them lots of choices about where they want to live.

Pollinators

We don't see many honey bees, but we have other pollinators busily working.  This one looks like a wasp of some kind.

This one is our Eastern Carpenter Bee.

pollinators on the wing

I

I've seen very few honey bees in Raleigh so I was happy to see them buzzing in the garden at the Prairie Ridge Ecostation.  There were other pollinators out and about also.

Carpenter bees

And moths.

The carpenter bees are MUCH bigger than the little honey bees.

And they have their own houses.

Bug's life

This carpenter bee shared a milkweed flower with a shiny beetle.  The insects were everywhere on a sunny hot day.

Bee nice

I got so excited.  I was sure I was seeing a rusty patched bumble bee.  They are an endangered species,(see here)  and I've been watching for them. But instead this one is an Eastern carpenter bee. (see here)  My husband has been warring with them in the spring, trying to keep them from putting holes in the house.  Oh well.