This morning dawned rather chilly and wet and after a brisk dog walk, I wandered up the garden. By now it had stopped raining and I spotted this stunning Queen Buff-tailed Bumble bee. She was quite cold, so fairly lethargic which gave me a chance to take a really good look at her. So many people are scared at the mention of a bee and sadly, for many children, the word ‘bee’ is synonymous with ‘sting’ and they are scared. In fact, most bees are reluctant to sting and will only do so if they are provocated. I always encourage children to sit down next to flowers and to watch the bumble bees, confident in the fact they will not cause the children any harm.
The Buff Tailed Bumble bee is one of the UK’s most common and widespread of bumble bees. The Queens, such as this are large and fairly easily spotted in the garden. She walked around on my hand for a while and was an impressive size!
This female was totally stunning and perfect. Only having my phone on me, I took a selection of pictures, using my iPhone 6. The camera on this is cracking and I love the versatility of a phone camera as you can position the lens so close and in difficult angles to capture the image you want. I also tend to always have my phone with me. I did pop back in and get my little Panasonic Lumix camera after taking these with my phone, but actually liked these better!
These images have been cropped slightly, but certainly good enough for a blog post!
