A girl’s gotta earn a living somehow. This little bee, probably a sweat bee in the genus Lasioglossum, has taken to dancing around the filaments of a Phacelia flower. The bee is so tiny that she can’t reach the pollen on the anthers without crawling up the narrow stalk. Once there, she has to balance in a precarious spot while she loads pollen into the scopa on her legs.

These bees are fascinating to watch as they climb, sometimes straddling two of the filaments at once, sometimes falling down backwards into the petals, sometimes seeming to pause and rest.

Altogether, the sweat bee is not much bigger than the honey bee’s compound eye. The honey bee doesn’t worry about the length of the filaments. She just belly flops onto the flower and crushes the filaments under her weight.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite