Crowded Snack Spots

These days the bumblebees are trying to find enough flowers with food. The pickings are scarce indeed. It grows colder with frosts in the mornings now, so I have seen these bumble bees taking the center of a cosmos and spreading out on it all night as the sun goes down. At first I thought they may have died in place, but next day as the sun reaches this wildflower patch, they are working at their flower centers again.
It is not unusual to see two bees working the same flower even though other cosmos nearby are empty. They kind of wrestle and fight for a space. Look closely and you can see how the bee on the left is holding the other bee away with his foot.
Right after I snapped this they got into a bee shouting match and one of them went over to work on another flower. I think these are Solitary Bees who live alone or in very small communities.
As I went around the garden doing clean up and pruning, I realized that at this time of the year there are very few flowers for these bees. I saw only one blooming dandelion with (again) two bees on it. That is an unusual sight.
The my usual bee plant, borage, has bloomed itself out with the plants are now on the compost heap.

Note to Self: Next year plant a LOT more cosmos seeds and wildflower mixes.

As I made that mental note I had to chuckle. I am already planning for the 2015 garden planting -- God willing... enshahallah!