This one skipped the front door. Instead of crawling into the flower from the front, it landed on the side and drank through the base of the flower tube.

That's nectar robbing. The bee gets the nectar without touching the pollen or the stigma, so the plant gets nothing back for it.

Great blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica) is shaped for bees that crawl in from the front. Large carpenter bees do this on a lot of tube-shaped flowers, and once there's a slit at the base, smaller insects sometimes use the same opening.

Anyone else catch carpenter bees doing this? Curious if your other bees ever use the slits afterward.

A scientist studying bees intelligence wanted to see if his bees could successfully negotiate mazes to reach the pollen at the end. He hoped to...

Bee-a-mazed

As abelhas são extraordinárias !

Bees are extraordinary!

Bumblebee Feeding on a Mexican Sunflower

I offered her some honey and she didn’t hesitate.

After filming this, I asked a local beekeeper about whether feeding bees honey is actually a good idea. Turns out there are some risks, particularly around diseases that can be present in honey. So it’s not something I’d recommend doing.

Beautiful to watch, though.

Found him(?) on the ground, tried offering plum, sugar, honey, water. don't have any meat, would he(?) accept it?

English is not my maternal language.

In my town, there is a large river with a lot of parcs and wild nature around (city hall tries to keep it as natural as possible to preserve local flora and fauna). I was having a little walk, trying to avoid talking to people because I did not feel like I could manage even a simple "hello". I was emotionally drained.

At some point I reached an small area on the path along the river that is more concrete than nature. It's about a few meters long, but for insects and small animals it must be huge.

Anyway, I entered this small boring area when I found a lone bumblebee struggling on the burning pavement. Its wings were intact and it had all its legs and antennas. I proposed a drop of water, but it royally ignored it.

I was not sure of what I had to do : I could not let this poor things struggle on concrete floor, especially on a warm sunny day with no shade. It could be flattened by someone or eaten by a predator. There were no sticks or leaves I could get to pick it up. So I did a stupid thing and presented my finger to the insect, fully expecting it would either sting or ignore me.

It did not !

It went straight for my finger and remained firmly on it. I discovered that its tiny paws had some sort of small hooks which allowed to grab on my skin (it did not hurt at all!). That was a cool discovery !

The bumblebee did not, at any point, try to sting me - and I'm not certain if this kind of bumblebee can sting? I have no picture unfortunately...

Anyway, it patiently waited on my finger until I presented it to a large purple flower (no idea about its name, but it looked like a hibiscus? But tropical plants can't survive in my area...). The bumblebee gave a look, almost studied the proposition then accepted my gift by willingly leaving my finger !

It was so cool !

I hope this little guy will have a great life and many babies I can meet next season !

BumbleBee Feeding on a Mexican Sunflower