It’s summertime, and summertime wouldn’t be complete without…
... more bee pictures!
This one was about as close as it looks; the Quantaray zoom/macro lens I've got has a minimum focusing distance of about a foot, and I was leaning back so I could get this honeybee into focus. (It didn't sting me, nor did it ram the lens when it took off and flew away to the next flower in the mintpatch. I guess it had not learned to fear the large black reflective clicking thing that was looming behind it while it was pollengathering.)
This one, on the other hand, stayed safely away on the other size of the mintpatch. Far enough away so that I could actually get a picture of it after it finished with a clump of flowers and had sprung up to fly away to the next.