What's not to love....

....about Santa Fe.

We were walking past the Cathedral gardens, and there were a couple of bushes alive with bees.  I counted three different species - two natives and the ubiquitous honey bee. 

This shot was just so lucky, a honey bee in flight and a native bee burrowing down into a flower. For the first time I used the long lens for a macro on the Olympus (40 - 150 with a 1.4 extension tube).  The lens is heavy, and I could have done with a monopod, but I managed quite well, with a very high shutter speed.  There was bright sunshine which helped a lot.

I think the bee is a male long horn bee, but I have absolutely no expertise in the bees of New Mexico, so could well be wrong.