TINY TUESDAY - BOMBUS TERRESTRIS

I went for a wander round the garden this morning not long after I got up - but I was dressed!  Wasn’t sure whether I would be taking part in the Tiny Tuesday challenge, but took quite a lot of photographs of flowers and I was drawn to our thornless blackberry which is flowering prolifically and looking very pretty.  Good to think that the fruit will make some wonderful crumbles later in the year.

One little bee was buzzing around, but didn’t stay still long enough for me to take its photograph, but this one lingered as it was obviously enjoying the nectar.  Many photographs later, I was indoors looking at the shots and asking Mr. HCB if he knew what it was.  Out came the British Wildlife Photo Guide and we believe it is a buff-tailed bumble bee otherwise known as bombus terrestris.

Although these are the UK’s largest species of bumble bee, the queen is the only one that has the buff-coloured tail, the workers all have white tails.  Made me think of our Queen at the Trooping of the Colour ceremony on Saturday - she was the only one wearing that very bright neon green!

Mr. HCB has gone to Bristol to watch a cricket match today - called a “day/nighter” where they start playing at 2 p.m. and don’t finish until about 10 p.m. tonight - the sun is now out here in Swindon, so hope it is shining on them down there.

“Aerodynamically, 
     the bumble bee shouldn’t be able to fly,
          but the bumble bee doesn’t know it
               so it goes on flying anyway.”
Mary Kay Ash

P.S.  I'm not one for looking at the Popular page, but noticed yesterday that I had 4 of my blips on there from the last few days, so thank you to everyone who visited and gave me stars and hearts.