Yesterday I returned to my photographic roots at Green Spring Gardens, a county-run historic park, to shoot flowers and bugs, the subjects I started with six months ago when Cindy Dyer, my mentor and muse, helped me get serious about my photography. It was cloudy and cool (about 47 degrees F (8.3 degrees C) and I didn’t expect to see many insects active. There was quite a variety of flowers blooming, including many that have been present all summer. Perhaps when we have a hard freeze, some of them will die off, but for now they provide a blast of bright color that contrasts with the now fading fall foliage.
Bee in early November
I was surprised when I encountered this bee, the only one that I saw all day. It seemed to be moving slowly in the colder weather, but was industriously working on this purple flower. Judging from its relatively hairless abdomen, I think that this might be a carpenter bee rather than a bumblebee, though I am not completely sure about the identification.
I have always mentally associated bees with spring, but now, as I look more closely at nature, I realize that I have to question all of my previous assumptions. That’s probably a good thing for me to do regularly, and not just in my photography.
Bee working in the cold
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Nature’s often so full of surprises. I don’t even try to identify bees. They look too much alike to me.
I try, but without great success. Bees are a whole lot easier for me than birds are (though I don’t have great success yet with either type, but I keep trying and often get help from others).
Those bees have a very strong work ethic it seems. Or maybe just this one. Maybe he’s up for a promotion in the hive and is trying to impress the queen. (I don’t know if they have a bee HR department?)
I was also out photographing in the cold today (about 4C here), but we don’t have any pretty colourful flowers left here in Ontario.
Glad to see the cold doesn’t deter you from shooting (that would be a big problem in much of Canada). As for bees, I think that he was following the recruiting slogan that our Army used to use, “Bee all that you can bee>”
🙂 haha