Bee's in Flight.

A beautiful day here in Nottinghamshire. My Red Mason bees were active from about 8.00am and built themselves up in to a right mating frenzy by about 10 O'clock.  This gave me a chance to try and photograph a few in flight.  In the past I've found macro-photography of moving insects all but impossible. However camera fully charged, shutter set for multiple shot standing on a chair so that I could get close to the hole they were investigating and then shoot away.  I upped the ISO to give me a bit more shutter speed and stayed focussed on one point hoping that the bees would actually fly into my focus point rather than me chase them around.  Hope you like the end result, I'm rather pleased for once. I've uploaded another couple of images on my flickr account, you can access this by clicking the link in the right hand column of this blog. 

Osmia bicornis Carlton Nottinghamshire 6th May 2013. 

This chap on my finger has got to be my favourite species of Bee, its not rare, it doesn't have anything fancy about other than its stunning colours.  Andrena haemorrhoa

Andrena haemorrhoa - Holme Pierrepont Nottinghamshire 6th May 2013

And finally, more Bees this time a couple of Mason Bees doing what comes naturally, it's either pushing the other one off or it's up to something else, I'll leave that one to you to work out. 

Osmia bicornis, Carlton Notts, 6th May 2013.