Green Bee

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Green Bee

August 17, 2013 by Mike Powell

I usually think of bees as being yellow and black, but I encountered this cool-looking metallic green bee (of the Agapostemon family) yesterday at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia.

I remember The Green Hornet on television when I was a child, but I had never seen a green bee before. At first I was not even sure that it was a bee, but as I watched it gather pollen, I concluded that it had to be a bee.

It seems appropriate that I would be suffering from color confusion at that moment, because the bee was perched on a Purple Cone Flower (Echinacea purpurea), a flower that in my experience is rarely purple—they normally appear to be more pink than purple.

Now that I have freed my mind and broken the bonds of my conventional thinking about the color of bees, perhaps I will be able to bee all that I can bee.

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography | Tagged Agapostemon, bee, Canon 50D, cone flower, Echinacea purpurea, green bee, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, metallic green bee, purple cone flower, Richmond VA, Tamron 180mm macro | 15 Comments

15 Responses

on August 17, 2013 at 2:11 pm | Reply acuriousgal

Great pics!! What a cool bee…lets just call him the Green Lantern of Bees!!
on August 17, 2013 at 2:34 pm | Reply Charlie@Seattle Trekker

Yes, the moral is to bee all that I can bee…Well done.
on August 17, 2013 at 2:36 pm | Reply iseebeautyallaroundbyrobpaine

what a photo mike, did not know about green bees!
on August 17, 2013 at 3:46 pm | Reply dapontephotography

Great photo Mike.
- on August 17, 2013 at 5:40 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks. I was not sure if the green would look as good in the photo as in real life, but it retained most of its metallic shine.
on August 17, 2013 at 7:59 pm | Reply Stephanie

All cool shots as usual!!
on August 17, 2013 at 8:34 pm | Reply New Hampshire Garden Solutions

That flower sure does look pink. It’s also darker than most.
- on August 17, 2013 at 8:44 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  I tried not to mess with the color too much and I think it;s pretty close to the way it looked.
  - on August 17, 2013 at 8:58 pm New Hampshire Garden Solutions
    
    I don’t doubt it. Many flower colors can vary from plant to plant by quite a bit.
on August 17, 2013 at 11:02 pm | Reply nliakos

Stunning photos! The bee looks electric.
on August 18, 2013 at 12:05 am | Reply margosnotebook

great shot!
on August 18, 2013 at 4:43 pm | Reply afrenchgarden

What a beautiful bee, Mike, I am very jealous. The photographs are amazing.
- on August 18, 2013 at 6:15 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks. The more I take photos, the more interesting things that I see. I think I have become much more attuned to my environment.
on August 18, 2013 at 8:56 pm | Reply Jenny

Love this! Are these bees native to Virginia?
- on August 19, 2013 at 5:13 am | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks. I think that they are pretty widespread, though I have only done a little research on them after realizing that I didn’t know what they were.