I was attracted initially by the bright red color of a cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis), but then I noticed a small amount of movement. When I looked more closely, I realized there was a tiny bee—the smallest that I have ever seen—busily gathering pollen. Rather than gathering pollen in little sacs, as I had seen other bees do, this bee seemed to be collecting it on his abdomen.
I don’t know much about plant anatomy, but as I searched on the internet, I learned some fascinating things about the cardinal flower, especially from a blog posting by Eye on Nature dealing with the way in which hummingbirds pollinate cardinal flowers. That posting contains some detailed images of the cardinal flower as well as some fantastic shots of a hummingbird.
I shot these images handheld with my 180mm macro lens. Ideally I should have used my tripod to get clearer shots, but the bee was so active that I feared that it would be gone if I had taken the time to set up the tripod.
It’s hard to appreciate the small size of the “bearded” section of the cardinal flower, so I enclosed an overall look at the flower as a final photo.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 
Great series of photographs!
Thanks, Victor. I’m still learning about getting better macro shots (including eventually using flash), but am pretty happy with how these turned out.
wow!
That little bee is doing exactly what the cardinal flower wants it to do.
Nice shots !
Shots with Macro lens are interesting !
utham
It does look like the bee is collecting pollen from the cardinal flower — depositing it on his abdomen?? Must be some special sticky hairs there to get it to stay. I think I must have missed this post the first time around. Talk about reinventing the wheel…The Eye on Nature blog mirrored what I wrote exactly.