Honey Bee (Apis mellifera)

Following on from our webinar about Get Cumbria Buzzing and my shot of the Buff-tailed Bumble Bee  I have been trying to improve my technique for capturing flying insects.   Today the "Purple Cloud"  (Thalictrum aquilegifolium) was absolutely alive with honey bees.   They seemed to be more collecting pollen than nectar as the "pollen basket" on the legs shows.

Out of many many shots I was most pleased by this one.  It will of course be going into the iNature get Cumbria Buzzing project.  Honey bees are hardly a surprise as a lady about 100m away has 10 or 12 hives.  What was noticeable was that the"black bees"  (actually very dark brown) were on one clump of flowers while the lighter "continental" bees where on a different clump... This isn't insect apartheid it is the fact that when a bee finds a source of food it goes back to the hive and passes on the information by a "wiggle dance".  So bees from one hive on one clump and from another on a different clump.