That is an awesome picture! I'm buying my first macro lens this year to photograph our bees and other insects. Can't wait to get close ups.

Are your bees Italians? We have carniolans and they aren't quite has hairy and seems much much darker.

Sam,
Great picture. I've been going crazy taking pictures of the bees here too after seeing your site and Anita's. I love this one as it is so expressive.

Question: What is the quilt for your Warre hives stuffed with? Do you make them yourself? We have a Serge-style hive top feeder that I've been insulating with lavender or cork. Wondering how the quilt would work in my hive.

My bees are mostly feral, a lot of russian (black bees) in the mix (maybe they do better in our area?) younger bees will be fuzzier so the foragers tend to be balder. This pic was taken with my canon a620 old camera, I cropped the image instead of scaling it so you get a "zoomed-in" effect.

I build all of my hive parts, the quilts I make are filled with pine wood shavings from my thickness planer. You could use pink insulation the "spun glass kind" or dry leaves (warre used them), they are not hard to make, you could just cut a regular super down or even use as is, staple some cotton cloth (burlap contains insect retardants much of the time) to the bottom, then use another square of cotton cloth to cover the hive before putting the quilt on, reason for this is because the bees glue the cloth to the hive this way you can remove the quilt without any trouble then peel back the hive cover cloth. I usually cover the cloth on the quilt with a window screen, this keeps the bees from chewing through both cloths into the quilt filling.

Forgot to mention these bees are mostly nurse bees, it was funny when I place my fingers on a frame or top bar sometimes then start crawling up to investigate, then they start licking up the salt (just a guess) I couldn't feel their tongues until they start licking under my fingernails then it tickles :) Like I said CUTE!!

Hi Sam,

What a great picture! It is beautiful. I also love the pic of the two bees drinking water side by side in the stream. There's something about bees with their tongues sticking out that is just so cute.

Ty :)

Sam,

Wonderful image, love it. I've done a huge number of macros, this is a real good one.