Busy Bees.

Last year, my cerinth plants were favoured by a small, black and extremely nippy variety of bee and I had little luck in photographing them.

This year, with more experience, greater observation and arguably a better camera, I've had a bit more luck...

I would have been happy with the first bee (top left) but I couldn't believe it when another bee decided to have an upside down wash and brush up.  It seems to have either lost some pigmentation on it's forelimbs - or acquired some pale gloves.  The last image was taken a bit later (same bee) and if you look closely (or in large!) you can see that the tongue is really a hollow tube.

I know I could have just uploaded the separate images, but it's good to practice PS skills and I wanted to show the sequence of shots.