Pretty wings

This is one of our solitary bees - a homalictus bee. They differ from regular bees by their size - they are minuscule, and by the way they store their pollen. You can see quite clearly on this image that they pack the pollen away under their belly.

And what always makes me smile is the pollen has ridges to match the ridges on the abdomen. So it's like a mirror image of the abdomen but yellow.

These tiny bees are very primitive and don't make honey as such. They only collect pollen to feed their larvae. So what is the point you may ask. They are incredibly useful for pollination of plants. So if we ever get hive collapse of the honey bees in this country (we are the only country in the world without the varroa mite) we can always depend on the natives for pollination. Whew!!

Yella belly

Thanks to everyone who had a look at my Stained Glass blip from yesterday. And thanks for all the comments. And thanks for all the stars. I leave a glittering trail behind me as I walk around the house. You don't know how much I appreciate your support.