Many of my shots come from a 70-300...although I do have a couple of legit 1:1 lenses. Here's one from the 70-300:

I'd hang that one on my wall Asa. Is that a Honey Bee?

I was shooting this guy:


When this guy came by. Shame the focal plane was off. Lots of bees today.



Again, the 300mm zoom lens. Oh, and check out the legs on this gal ;):

RobinSeeds said:I'd hang that one on my wall Asa. Is that a Honey Bee?

I think it's an Italian honeybee? Dirt, correct me if I'm wrong. I know it's a European one. Our neighbor to the east keeps them.

FYI guys, I will be heading to Silver Springs tomorrow for the FL Wildflower Foundation Symposium. The actual symposium is Friday and Saturday, but Mom and I are going up early to have fun! There is a bee talk on Saturday and a bee walk. I think I can do the bee talk, but the walk is during the same time slot as the "Monarchs and Milkweed" talk. Decisions, decisions! I'll be taking notes so I'll try to come back with useful information.

Everyone be good for the next few days! I'll have my laptop and Wi-fi at the hotel, but I'll be busy having fun and learning things. I'll try to check in and give you guys the highlights!

Meant to do this earlier, but congratulations to our members who were listed in the newsletter this week for receiving noteworthy acorn tips:

@GrammaChar for http://garden.org/thread/view_...

@dirtdorphins for http://garden.org/thread/view_...

Oh my newsletter hasn't arrived yet. I wonder where it could be.

@evermorelawnless
Asa, yes, an Italian honey bee.

@Gleni
Glen, it takes a while for it to get to Oz.

http://garden.org/newsletter/ Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Which I guess would be Saturday afternoon in Australia? Or Sunday? Or Friday? How does that work?

Lol. One of my many, increasing Senior Moments.

This is Wednesday not Saturday! Du, duh.

The newsletter arrives like clock-work exactly on the dot at 1626 hours on a Saturday. Lol.

The cats still think I am the best, though.

Congrats to Dirt and Gramma the blog photos Dirt and Asa ! My day off so I spent a little more time than usual outside for pictures. These were taken along, in, and at the end, of my driveway today:

<-- Big Assassin Bug also called a Wheel Bug b/c of the half cogwheel shape on its head.
The Carpenter Bee gathers pollen from the Passion Flower by circling the stamens around and around several times in about 30 seconds
Assassin climbing up telephone pole. The PPL means "Pennsylvania Power and Light". Note the missing leg segment on the right.


Since the next three pictures feature a butterfly AND a bee both????..well...hmmm... WWMD? Just teasing ya Mellie-You're the best moderator we could want!!
I'll just post a duplicate in the butterfly thread. Oh, by the way, this little flower is from a "weed" I allowed to sprout up in the gravel driveway.


I was lucky enough to witness this little native Small Carpenter bee(Ceratina spp. there's just too many to sort out right now!) deliberately crashing into this Pearl Crescent.
It happened that I was just lucky that the camera was in focus, and I was already there. First the PC butterfly was nectaring, it bops her hard, then settles in for the rewards of aggression!

[quote="Gleni"]Lol. One of my many, increasing Senior Moments.

This is Wednesday not Saturday! Du, duh.

Oh Shoot Glen!!! You scared me into thinking I was just as senior momenty as yourself!! I was thinking: " What??!!! I didn't go into work today! *$&$@! It IS Tuesday -right?? (my scheduled day off normally) Then I realized where you live

Bees and bee-like -








Mantis adventures -
(bottom right)





the Other category -
Grasshopper > Soldier Bug >

Gleni said:The cats still think I am the best, though.

We do, too, Glen.

Jmorth---GORGEOUS clear shots that really highlight the interaction of the insects with the plants they occupy! I wonder if your little mantis is a native type or the standard Chinese import? Have you told us already what type of camera and lenses you use? Sorry if I'm being redundant...hiho hiho it's off to work.....

mellielong said:
Here's a stinkbug I saw on Plumbago as I was leaving today.

I haven't posted on here as much lately, but I still enjoy skimming these threads to see what everyone is seeing. I recognized this one above. It is a male Euthochtha galeator - Helmeted Squash Bug. There are several species that look a lot like this, but those white things on the sides of the male are unique to this species.
http://bugguide.net/node/view/...

I'm really enjoying everyone's pictures. I still try to take some wildlife pics almost every day, and put most of them on iNaturalist. Some tricky to id or not well documented things also go on BugGuide or BAMONA. Instead of reposting the same pictures here I thought it would be faster just to post a link to my recent iNat sightings filtered to insects and arachnids from my yard if anyone is interested.
http://www.inaturalist.org/obs...

There seems to be less activity in the yard than I think there should be this time of year. Could be from the town mosquito spraying. Or maybe it's the fault of that annoying man who kept trolling the neighborhood all summer selling his "natural" pest control services because my next door neighbor used them. He told us he would spray all our eaves to kill spiders! Um, hell no. I had to tell him to scram twice already. I wish there was a pest control product to keep him away! A bright red "no solicitors" sign seemingly has no impact. I do not understand people like that at all.

I had a brief boom of monarchs a week or two ago, likely migrating through. For a few days I was seeing up to 10 at a time, and they all looked young and fresh. One or two were my own releases. I raised very few this year though. There were very few monarchs seen for most of the summer. Of the eggs I did find and raise, much more than usual failed to make it adulthood. I think I ended up with a grand total of 15 raised this year. My best year was 2010 when I had 163. I don't know if that will ever happen again.

@nativeplantlover I use a Canon SX130 IS, been using it for several years and a few drops. It's taken well over a 100000 pics; it's usage has taken a toll however, where once like 95% plus were good pictures, it's down to 50%.

@molanic Thanks for sharing your iNaturalist page! (I downloaded the app a while ago, but haven't used it yet.) Looks like you have quite a variety!

Although there was a high, thin layer of clouds today, I decided to try my luck again at getting some images of something other than carpenter bees. No luck with locating butterflies, but bumblebees, a spider, a yellow jacket and a couple of honey bees (don't ask me what kind) were around. There were a lot of bumble bees, but they are so small and frenetic, they are a real challenge.



It took forever to get this shot as the wind kept moving the web back and forth.









This image is for the person who likes to see bee necks.

Love them all, marsover!

Great link, Molanic! I've saved it too.