Bumbles in the Garden

Lavender flowers in the garden in the afternoon sun were humming with bumblebees today.

I still haven't managed to justify robbing the piggy bank for a macro lens so I decided to have a go at some photos using the 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens (handheld and no IS) on the Olympus E-420 DSLR. The photos aren't very sharp but I will persevere and have a few more attempts next week perhaps using a tripod.

My bee id skills are at about the same level as my moth id skills (!) and I particularly find it hard to differentiate between Garden, Buff-tailed and White-tailed but I think the first few photos are of a Buff-tailed bumblebee.

I love the wings in this first photo - looking like colourless stained glass









There were several Common Carder Bees





I checked the St Johns Wort flowers so beloved by the Red-tailed bumblebee but most of the flowers are now past their best and there were only a few common carder bees around.

Bumble bees have a lot of great country names - according to "Bugs Britannica" by Peter Marren and Richard Mabey alternative names include: bumbard, bummie-bee, dumbledore, dusty miller, gairy bee, hummobee, sunny sodger and red arsie. What super names!

A tame (juvenile?) dunnock was busy collecting food from under the feeding station as I was trying to take bee photos.