Blue Carpenter Bees

[Dalantech]

Shot at about 1.5x with a Canon MPE-65mm macro lens. I changed my Fstop from 11 to 16 on some of these -needed the extra depth. These bees like to "cheat" by puncturing the side of a flower with their proboscis instead of sticking their heads down the center -a behavior that's tough to shoot for a multitude of reasons. I also managed some pre-flight maintenance images.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3246/2914974688_9e09d7d2a4_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3225/2915175276_12a8594642_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3247/2914334369_d11ec804dc_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3292/2915178848_24a7271cba_b.jpg

[alliec]

Love that first one John, really interesting behaviour.

[LordV]

Lovely series- esp like #2.
Bumble bees here do the same trick with some flowers eg columbine.
Brian V.

[Lester Wareham]

Fantastic series. #2 is a stunner.

[bandit 1]

Hiya DT,
Excellent series of shots, superb details, lighting :D

Cheers for now
Mark

[Attic]

Superb and interesting series John ;)

[andrikos]

Nice!
I got stung by one of those critters and it felt like my arm was punched by Mike Tyson!
My whole arm became red and swollen. It felt like it was 200 degrees! Ice would melt immediately.
Yowsa!
PS Of course, 2 weeks later I got stung twice by wasps. Not as bad but my left eye was swollen too! haha!

[racketman]

good detail in all that black.

[Greg_C]

Great shots John.

[devil350]

Great series, love #1 and #2, but the | is really my favorite.

Congrats.

Laurent.

[paul190453]

Really like these John...different from the usual bee shots that we see...the proboscis looks "deadly":) Good to see f16 can work!:)

[lcpete]

superb series I agree #2 is a stunning shots
I've been using F16 a bit lately too to get a bit more depth with some subjects ( not with MPE tho)
Pete