Little and large

A quiet day at home, some of it spent in the increasingly parched garden, where only the toughest plants are still blooming. The star of the show is still this Eryngium, and today it was attracting many bees. 

Both the insects on this flower-head are bees. The one of the left is a tiny solitary bee known as the Common Yellow-face, which is common in many habitats including gardens and is an opportunistic cavity-nester, utilising existing burrows of a suitable diameter, particularly in dead wood and woody stems (such as bramble), but also in the soil and crevices in mortar joints. On the right is the much larger and generally familiar Buff-tailed Bumblebee. The extra image shows the bumblebee cleaning its very long tongue, a delicate and time consuming procedure, but one that must be necessary to prevent it becoming too sticky.