Bumble bee on [...]]]> My camera was trained on honey bees in the waxleaf ligustrum when this little bumble bee-bopped into view. I like the orange of her abdomen against the orange of the flowers. Actually, I didn’t even know the flowers had orange in them until I began shooting. Kinda cool. —Rusty

Bumble bee on ligustrum.

Yesterday I was able to capture three bees drinking from some wet woodchips that I had dumped on a woodland [...]]]> After I wrote about favorite watering holes for bees, several readers wrote to say their bees liked wet potting soil. One reader sent the following photo of four bees in a small plastic pot.

Yesterday I was able to capture three bees drinking from some wet woodchips that I had dumped on a woodland path. Another person said their bees liked wet coffee grounds. I put some out near the hives for a few hours but found no takers . . . swearing off the caffeine, I suppose.

Bees in potting soil. Photo by DW Krape.

Three bees in wet woodchips.

A [...]]]> Yesterday I saw these two little guys on the fall-flowering clematis just as the sun was setting. They look like a type of fly, but that’s all I know. Their wings glinted gold in the slanting sun, and they went from flower to flower, apparently happy to have found something in bloom.

A pair of pollinators

Nevertheless, yesterday between rain storms I took my camera up to the bee yard to photograph whatever [...]]]> I received a complaint that, lately, my posts have lacked pictures. Well, dah! It’s December! It is very hard to photograph bees or beekeeping when everything is on hold and waiting for spring.

Nevertheless, yesterday between rain storms I took my camera up to the bee yard to photograph whatever I could find. What I found was–don’t be surprised–fungus! After all, this is the Pacific Northwest.

Living in the mold and mildew capital of the New World, it is easy to become inured to the charms of fungus because they are everywhere. For the most part, the only ones I can identify are the ones I can eat. The rest I pretty much ignore or else I don’t see them at all–background noise of a sort.

After the first freeze of winter–which we already had–many of the larger fungi are pretty much destroyed. The slippery, slimy and brown remnants mush into the ground and disappear. But I found a few–just so you can’t complain about the lack of pictures.

Rusty

Forest floor mushrooms just below the hive stands.

Mushrooms in the winter stream.

Some of these white ones were just popping out of the ground.

Tiny cup-shaped mushrooms called "bird's nest fungi" on a twig.

No idea, but kind of pretty.

These are drooping off the side of a moss-covered tree.

Growing on a downed log near uppermost hives.

Creature in a peach tree. Photo [...]]]> While I was photographing apiary creatures, this one stopped by and landed on a peach tree. I know it’s in the order Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) but that sums up my knowledge. Still, it’s pretty and deserves to have its fifteen minutes of fame.

Creature in a peach tree. Photo by the author.

View from the front. Photo by the author.

Although my camera was basically prepared for some macro photography, I [...]]]> One morning this spring I went outside ready to take photos of mason bees coming and going from the bee condo. What I found there wasn’t a bee but my cat, perched about eight feet high on the roof of the bee condo.

Although my camera was basically prepared for some macro photography, I quickly took some shots of the cat. I failed to reset the metering mode and a few other things, so the pictures turned out terrible. Unusable . . . completely washed out. Every time I saw them I decided to delete, but I never quite got around to it.

Yesterday I was playing with PhotoShop, trying to learn how to use this mystifying piece of software. For some reason I chose the cat pictures as a learning tool. What I got was pretty cool–cat art!

So here, for your delectation, I present “Cat on a Mason Bee Condo.” Oh well . . . I don’t wander off topic too often.

Rusty

Cat on a Mason Bee Condo. Photo by the author.