Pollinators

Every summer, Manitoba’s flowers fill with small, busy visitors. Bumblebees, metallic sweat bees, hoverflies, and leafcutter bees all work the same blooms, and most of them are easy to overlook until you stop and look closely.

I photograph them up close in warm summer light, when they are slow enough to follow. A macro lens shows details that are invisible at normal distance: the pollen on a bee’s legs, the stripes on a hoverfly, the iridescent shine of a bee smaller than a fingernail.

These photographs are a reminder of how much of the work in a garden or a prairie meadow is done by the smallest animals, and how much there is to see once you slow down enough to watch them.

Bumblebee hovering over white flower heads

Photos

  • Tiny green bee in flight beside a pink flower
  • Metallic blue bee on a yellow and pink daisy
  • Dark bee clinging to the petal of a pink flower
  • Fly hovering in front of yellow petals
  • Leafcutter bee on a white globe thistle
  • Small bee inside a purple geranium bloom
  • Hoverfly with red eyes on a pale flower
  • Bee on a red coneflower

Back to macro photography, or see Manitoba bird photography.