CalevPhoto

Time for some bees

During the recent warm weather, I figured it would be nice to get out there and take some bee shots.  This also gave me a chance to work with my 180mm macro, which has lately been ignored in favor of the MP-E 65.  While the MP-E 65 is an amazing lens, for things like bees the 180L is far more appropriate.

I had hoped to catch a bee in flight, but alas the only shots I got were too OOF.  I could have probably made my life easier by not trying to get the shot at 1:1, but then it wouldn’t have looked as interesting!  From past experience, I have found it’s better to try to take an amazing shot and fail than to take several mediocre shots.

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Stalking bees in the garden

Those of you who know me will find it very odd that I actually attempted to get some shots of bees the other day.  Even more shocking is that I went with my MP-E 65 instead of the 180L- which is what I normally use when stalking bees.  The thing is, I am absolutely terrified of things with wings and stingers.  However, I am beginning to warm up to bees and I have found that they generally don’t mind me taking their picture while they are busy gathering pollen.

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Overcoming my fears

Those of you who have had the opportunity to go camping with me or sit down at a picnic with me will know one thing for sure.

I am terrified of bees

Basically I am terrified of anything winged that stings – which includes wasps, hornets, and bees. I strive to be as far away from them as possible and I am terrified of being stung. I have been told for years that they are harmless, but in truth I’d still rather not be near them. My stance has been the following – “thanks for helping the ecosystem and pollinating flowers, but please stay away from me”. With wasps and hornets I am even more afraid than I am of bees, and I remember a number of nervous summers spent in the Adirondacks feeling that a bald faced hornet was just behind me.

Then I got started in macro photography. Obviously bees make interesting and popular subjects and I decided one day it was worth the risk to get a shot. At the time, my macro gear was nowhere near as powerful as it is now, and I had my Sigma 80-400mm lens combined with a Canon 500D diopter. A found a number of bees pollinating flowers but found it very difficult to track them. I quickly realized that the only way I was going to get the shot was to stay still, focus on one flower that I think they will land on, and wait. I quickly took stock of the situation. Did I really want to do this? I would have to be about two feet from the bee and would have to stay still while they fly around me for quite some time. What if one accidentally landed on me? In the interest of getting a good shot, I decided the risk was worth it. Besides, the bees seemed very preoccupied with the flowers.

Amazingly, I lived from the experience and got the following shot. Now I find it very unimpressive but at the time I was very proud of it and showed it off often.

Perhaps the most important result of this experiment was I determined that bees (at least honey bees) are not out to get me. Obviously, I would still prefer they keep their distance and I still get freaked out when a yellow jacket buzzes around my sandwich but I did determine that some bees are OK. I had to sit around for twenty minutes to get this shot. Twenty minutes of being within inches at time from bees, but I managed to persevere enough to get this shot. Granted, I did not persevere long enough to get two shots but it was a good start.

Later on, I sold the diopter and I purchased the Canon MP-E 65 with the Canon MT-24EX flash. This is the combination I currently use for most of my macro shots. While this is great for spiders, woodlice, and other insects I do not fear and can get close to, it doesn’t work so well with bees. Due to the small working distance, I need to get a few centimeters from the bee. First, this is quite difficult to do – most bees move far too fast. Secondly, even though I don’t fear bees as much, I still would prefer not to be that close. What if I accidentally bumped the bee with the camera? So, even though I had the opportunity to take pictures of a number of bees, I avoided photographing them. However, that changed when I met a most interesting bee.

One day, while organizing a Microsoft macro photo shoot at Bellevue Botanical Gardens, I noticed a bee pollinating a group of flowers. I watched the bee for a minute or two before noticing that it was crawling from flower to flower and not taking flight. I’m not sure what was wrong with the bee – it was a bit chilly that day so perhaps it was cold. However, it was simply happy to crawl around a bush of flowers and pollinate them. I debated whether I should try to get a shot. Maybe it would not fly away? Maybe it would let me get close? As it was a honey bee, and did not seem to aggressive, I decided to take my chances.

What I stumbled upon was perhaps the most cooperative bee I have ever met. For the next ten minutes, it let me take as many photos as I desired. I took all of them between 1x and 2x as I still didn’t want to risk bumping it. The following are some of the shots this bee was gracious enough to let me capture.

I found especially interesting the shots of the bee taking pollen from the flowers. I never realized they had such long tongues, but it certainly makes sense.

Perhaps when I get my Canon 180mm lens soon I will take more shots of bees, as a bee that will let me get this close is quite rare. In the meantime, I am very glad that I met the acquaintance of this bee and that it was kind enough to let me get these shots and prove once again that some bees can be very nice.