One of my greatest joys is getting up close to bees on flowers and snapping a picture.

Photography is probably the #1 means by which I practice tip #14 – Seek Distractions – as suggested in my book.  Bees on flowers are one of my favorite photographic challenges.

My Relationship with Bees as a Child

It’s interesting this new relationship I have with bees.  As a child, I didn’t like bees at all.  In fact, they terrorized me.

I grew up in a house nestled at the base of three big hills in Woodland Hills, California.  Covered with tall lush grass, those hills became a gigantic yellow slide in the fall.  Us neighborhood kids would flatten cardboard boxes, hop on them and speed down those hills.

However, we were not the only ones who liked the tall yellow grass in the big hills. The bees did, too.  Often while sailing down the hills, we’d run into a cluster of bees.  Especially scary were the great big fat bumblebees. The size of silver dollars.  OMG.  I’ve suffered many scrapes and bruises tumbling off the cardboard to avoid a collision with the bees. Thankfully, I never did get stung. But my friends did.

My Relationship with Bees Today

But that was then.  Now as an adult with camera in hand, I am fascinated by bees.  Both honey bees and bumblebees.  Bumblebees with their round and fuzzy bodies are my preference for photography.  Honeybees are smaller and thinner and not fuzzy. However, if one is resting on a flower and the wind isn’t blowing too hard, and the light is just right…

I’ve created a short video of some of my bee photography.  It’s short because between a bee buzzing around, and the wind moving the flower, getting a clear shot is challenging.  But I’ve captured a few.

As always, when I do a post like this I look up interesting facts about the subject. Here are some interesting facts about of our beloved bees curated from a fun site called Mental Floss.

Bees have smelly feet

Bees, like all insects, are covered in an oily film that makes them waterproof. When they land on a flower, they leave their chemical signature behind. Other bees can smell these oily footprints left on flowers, and know not to land visit—the nectar’s already been pillaged. Bees also use these footprints as a sort of smelly “Welcome Home” mat; the scent helps them find their way back to the entrance of their nest.

Bees Eat A lot

With their extremely fast metabolisms, bees have to eat a ton. A bumblebee with a full stomach is only ever about 40 minutes from starvation.

Bumblebees don’t die when they sting.

That’s just a thing in honeybees. So yes, a bumblebee can sting you twice. However, male bumblebees don’t have a stinger at all, and female bumblebees aren’t very aggressive, so unless you go barging into their nest, you’re likely safe. (Like sliding down that hill in Woodland Hills!)

How do bees fly?

I found this article about researchers who finally deciphered the mystery of a bee flight. It is a combination of the curve and flaps of the wings:    200 -230 times per second. That’s a similar RPM to some motorcycle engines.

Bees are Fascinating

Bees, as with nearly everything in nature, are fascinating. What would our world be like without those honey bees and bumblebees hopping from bloom to bloom?