As requested: Solitary Bees

in photography •  7 years ago  (edited)

My first posting on request (from @brizhorticulture), who would have thought it would come to this: two of the solitary bees that can be found in The Netherlands, both mining bees:

Gray-backed mining-bee (Andrena vaga), grijze zandbij in Dutch:

Hairy legged mining bee (Dasypoda hirtipes), pluimvoetbij in Dutch:

I have some more photos of unusual bee species, but this will have to do for now.

Thanks for watching!

Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!
Sort Order:  

Wow, they are so fluffy!

Great work @ocrdu! I can't wait until it gets a bit warmer here so I can go out into the weeds and look for things to photograph! In the meantime I'll have to satisfy myself by looking at your pictures.

Thanks! Note that these are reposts on request; things are a bit slow with the insects here as well. I have just seen the first bee of the season going about its business, plus two moths, and some mosquitos 8-). The first flowers are here, though, and many of the trees have buds already. I have even seen some blossom.

How cold is it at your end?

It's starting to get warmer, 13C to 2C tomorrow. So far I've only had an unidentified fly smack me in the face while walking. The Plum (not cherry) blossoms are out though! And the cherry trees are budding here too. Really want to take the a7r out to play!

wow!! great shots, they look like they are rather large, are they hard to get shots of?

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Slightly larger than a European honey bee, about 13-15mm. They are fully concentrated when digging, and not aggressive (they can't even sting, they have no stinger), so you can get really close for a shot without problems. It seems they don't even notice you when they are digging. These shots were made at 42mm focal length.

sounds like a dream come true for me :-)
Our solitary bees are so fast and erratic I find it hard to get a good shot haha
Thanks for sharing!

Even when it is cold or when they are eating?

They are hard to find when its cold, some people get great shots of them im just not very good and only have a budget camera :-)

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Should be doable with your Fujifilm Finepix HS10/HS11, I use the modest Olympus Stylus 1s for this sort of thing, not dedicated macro stuff.

whoa, how did you work out my camera type?

and yes its doable I have some on a USB somewhere :-)

I'm a long-distance stalker. Or I looked at the EXIF data of your photos, could be that as well.

Awesome pict.
Beautiful macro photography @ocrdu

pixresteemer_incognito_angel_mini.png
Check The Daily spotlights of 23 February 2018! You missed one? ----> #dailyspotlights
Your quality post caught my attention and I hope you benefit from my resteem. My followers have a refined appreciation for quality art. You might also enjoy my curated collection. To see the quality posts I have curated via resteem, see my blog @pixresteemer. If you want to know more about me and my mission, please check my introduction.

Marvelous close shots. How close do you have to get for these?

I think the front lens was about 4 or 5cm away from them, as close as the camera would focus at 42mm in macro mode. They didn't mind.

Very cool captures, great detail and color!!!

Thank you!