Yesterday, before going for a dinner with my teacher friends, I met Dawn at Bishan Park because she wanted to learn how to shoot macro with her Canon digicam. Having been there before, I knew I wasn’t going to expect a lot of interesting insects, but I brought my camera along anyway. And I didn’t regret it because I’ve got my first bee in flight shots near the spa centre!

Bees are flying insects, closely related to wasps and ants. They are adapted for feeding on nectar (an energy source primarily) and pollen (for protein and other nutrients).

They have long proboscis (some sort of a tubular feeding and sucking organ) that enables them to obtain the nectars from flowers.

Could you see something yellow attached to the bee in the pictures above? The thing attached to its hind leg is actually called scopa.  It is simply a particularly dense mass of elongated, often branched, hairs that acts like a storage device to pack the pollen that the bee has gathered. 

Bees play an important role in pollinating the flowering plants. Usually, bees that are deliberately gathering pollen are the more efficient pollinators. In fact, some farmers intentionally raise bees to use them as pollinators for their crops.

Above is a freezing shot of a honeybee in flight. As it was a real pain to focus properly because the bee was hovering erratically. Much luck was needed to capture sharp images of flying insects, and I was quite pleased with this one.

And this is the last picture of the series. Here, you can really see it up-close. Look at the distinctive scopa on its hind legs!

Hope you enjoyed viewing.