This bee seemed to be having a great time inside of a lotus flower when I spotted it last Tuesday during a brief visit to Green Spring Gardens with my friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer. This county-run historical garden has only a relatively limited number of lotuses and waterlilies at a small pond, but it is much more accessible and less crowded that Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, an amazing facility in Washington D.C. operated by the National Park Service that has multiple acres of cultivated ponds with a wide array of water lilies and lotuses.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
I never knew the stamen (maybe) was flat! I have never seen that before. So beautiful and interesting.
That is a stunning photo! Thank you again
This is a beautiful photo of an open Lotus flower with the bee happily engaged in collecting pollen from the stamens that surround the center’s prominent seed pod. Though I cannot say from any personal experience; the flowers, leaves, roots and seeds are edible. As I looked at the enlarged photo of this Lotus flower I was taken back to my 4th year Latin class in high school. We spent the most of the year translating Homer’s Odyssey (The Iliad had been translated during the 3rd year class). I recall a part about the land of the Lotus-eaters where Odysseus’s men became forgetful of their purpose immediately after being given the flowering plant by the island’s native inhabitants and need to be carted back to the ship. How “od” the memories that returned just by looking at your lovely photo! Thank-you, Mr. Mike!
Fabulous perspective, Mike!
I used to visit Kenilworth every year when I lived in Brentwood (PG County). It was always beautiful and never crowded back then. You brought back lovely memories!
Thanks, Nina, for your wonderful recollections. I guess “crowded” is a relative term. With the current situation, it does not take many people for me to begin to have the feeling that there are too many.
That’s certainly true. There was no pandemic in the late 70s and early 80s when my not-yet-husband and I used to visit both the Aquatic Gardens and the National Arboretum, another favorite haunt. We could not have imagined back then what we are living through today.
Take care and be safe!
Lotus flowers are so other-worldly. We visited the Victoria Gardens in Melbourne last year, and there was a pond in which, I think, hundreds of them were flourishing. I could easily have spent several days contemplating and studying their exotic elegance.
I too am fascinated by lotuses–even their seedpods look almost alien, like little eyeballs staring out of a shower-head like plant structure.
Nice Mike! Great colors & textures around the bee!
A bee’s work never stops. I miss the lotuses in our former local lotus pond. Their rhizomes are still there but the former owner passed away and the new ones have allow cattails to rule.