A special solitary bee

Henk Wallays · Post by **Henk Wallays** » Sun Mar 15, 2020 2:19 am

After yesterdays entrance here is a shot of another Belgian based solitary bee. This is a bit of a special case as this is a cuckoo bee that specializes on using nests of bees of the genus Macropis. The Macropis bees specialize on harvesting pollen from plants in the genus Lysimachia and only these plants. The cuckoo bee does not visit this plant but is thus indirectly also depending on this plant. As you can see it is a very colorfull bee and also a very rare bee. I am just lucky to live i the area where they seem to occur the most ;-)

In this last picture I had he luck of finding the bee at reast in the grass (they bite to a grass leaf and hand on there). AS I approached it discovered me but since it was cool and overcasted it took some time for it to react, so I wasable ot make the shot . The green color behind it are the other grass leaves that blured out nicely

All images handheld with the twinflash and my 180 mm macro. I am using the X2 in camera enlargement to have a somewhat larger then 1:1 image while maintaining my distance to make the shots (as bees really like to take off soon).

Dalantech · Post by **Dalantech** » Sun Mar 15, 2020 6:35 am

Nice set!

That in camera enlargement is just a crop of the sensor, and is not increasing magnification.

Lou Jost · Post by **Lou Jost** » Sun Mar 15, 2020 6:39 am

Nice pictures and story!

Henk Wallays · Post by **Henk Wallays** » Sun Mar 15, 2020 11:04 am

Hai Dalantech, I know it is , but it goes rather well till double life size and still offers me an image at original 42 mpix. So it works with me. Hope however to skip over to the Laowa 100 mm macro, which will double my magnification range at bit. But then I hope it still works in the field

Dalantech · Post by **Dalantech** » Sun Mar 15, 2020 11:13 am

Henk Wallays wrote:Hai Dalantech, I know it is , but it goes rather well till double life size and still offers me an image at original 42 mpix. So it works with me. Hope however to skip over to the Laowa 100 mm macro, which will double my magnification range at bit. But then I hope it still works in the field

Curious to see what you think of that lens. When I'm not shooting with the MP-E 65mm I like to use the EF-S 60mm and extension tubes. The 60mm loses a lot of focal length at minimum focus and becomes a 37mm lens, so it only takes 37mm of extension to get to 2x. I took this shot with that lens and 25mm of extension:

[url]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49659027997_cbc797c8be_b.jpg[/url]Finger Fed Bumblebee III by John Kimbler, on Flickr

Henk Wallays · Post by **Henk Wallays** » Sun Mar 15, 2020 11:25 am

I like the image but I do not think I will be able to get as close in nature . Currently I am about 20 cm away from what I photograph, getting as close as 5 cm for full heated bees is too difficult I fear. But ex-situ I think it would be fine .

Dalantech · Post by **Dalantech** » Sun Mar 15, 2020 11:51 am

Henk Wallays wrote:I like the image but I do not think I will be able to get as close in nature . Currently I am about 20 cm away from what I photograph, getting as close as 5 cm for full heated bees is too difficult I fear. But ex-situ I think it would be fine .

The important thing is to produce images that you are happy with, and that are unique. Everything else is, IMHO, irrelevant.

MarkSturtevant · Post by **MarkSturtevant** » Fri Mar 27, 2020 6:34 am

Very nice and interesting pictures.
We have a cuckoo bee that has a similar abdomen, but yours is more colorful. Kleptoparasitism, as the beehavior is called, is pretty widespread in bees. There are "cuckoo" bumble bees, which I have not knowingly seen, but we also have a cuckoo leaf cutter bee. Though of course those don't bother cutting leaves. I see them pretty often, always perched alertly on the end of a twig; I suppose watching for a passing opportunity.