Green bee

I gave Damien the decoy dragonfly an hour, but still no interest from the resident dragonfly population, just more of the same species of butterfly swooping down for a quick inspection. I didn't even bother clicking the shutter as I had this scene well covered yesterday. It was extremely hot with the occasional small cloud bringing welcome relief. I'll Give Damien a yellow coat tonight and see if that makes any difference.

There were a lot of bees around, so having had an hour to follow their path, I was in a good position to select a popular bloom. So I did bees for the second hour.

Oh joy, finally nailed the green bee at the grove. Well, as you see from the photo, it is more of a blue than a green, maybe turquoise or cyan and quite metallic, I'm not that knowledgeable on colors, but you can definitely see a hint of green and when it catches the light at the right angle it appears almost lime green.

As this beautiful insect is an accomplished hoverer, I felt confident with 1/125th sec, with one stop under exposure this gave me F8, which past experience on this project told me would be enough for DOF. It is a compromise shot, I wanted to show everything in my first green bee shot.

I chose two blooms very close together, so that when it happened I might get a few shots in. I positioned so that the bells were facing me, as I felt I had enough DOF and this angle would give me a good view of the thorax and abdomen. Clearly I focused on the bottom bloom, as I did lose the top one slightly.

Next time I will go for a pure hover shot. This will mean a fast shutter speed and subsequently narrow DOF, so the bloom will be positioned side on so that the bee will be in the same focal plane as the bloom, possibly with a higher ISO number to achieve the speed, depending on the available light. This handsome insect is definitely worth another blip or two, I hope you agree.

I managed to get four shots in the few seconds that the bee granted me and they were all blippable, so I merged three of them together for the full story. It was a pity the bee in flight was slightly out of frame, but I still liked it and considered it worth including in the combo.

I really hope that you enjoy the blip as it was long, hot work. I have probably spent ten hours in the sun over the last week looking for this bee, all for about six seconds of action. My right arm and leg are crispy brown, but well worth the effort. Feeling very pleased with myself at the moment.

Update - blue banded bee (female) - Amegilla cingulata

Dave