neon cuckoo bee

piggsypiggsy Registered Users Posts: 88 Big grins
edited November 20, 2016 in Holy Macro
A neon cuckoo bee. These target the blue banded bees, they lay their eggs in the blue banded nests before they're completed, and the cuckoo hatches earlier and eats the stored food before the blue banded bee larvae can get to it. Have to get up reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallly early in the morning to get these guys - ran into them twice at 4am and couldn't get 'em, had to come back for a 3rd go in complete darkness and cooler weather.

E-P5 / Olympus 60mm 2.8 / Cross polarised and ordinary flash

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Here's a gif of their pre-takeoff cleaning ritual.

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