The sweetest bees...
Early morning June 20th; I'm wandering around my garden, camera in hand, looking for something to photograph. I lift a nodding harebell flower to check its photogenic properties and discover, to my absolute delight, two bees defying gravity, lying together inside the flower. I'd never seen this before.
They are Gold-tailed Melitta bees (Melitta haemorrhoidalis) both female. They are actually holding one another, and seem to be using the flower's tendrils as some kind of support, though I don't know this as fact. They are asleep. It's hard to tell that (obviously) as they have no eyelids, but they didn't move at all as I tried hooking the flower over another so I could keep it facing upwards, nor while I clicked away and moved the flower this way and that trying to get a good angle.
They are Gold-tailed Melitta bees (Melitta haemorrhoidalis) both female. They are actually holding one another, and seem to be using the flower's tendrils as some kind of support, though I don't know this as fact. They are asleep. It's hard to tell that (obviously) as they have no eyelids, but they didn't move at all as I tried hooking the flower over another so I could keep it facing upwards, nor while I clicked away and moved the flower this way and that trying to get a good angle.
Eventually, the bee on the left moved (woke up), gave itself a quick clean up, and left the flower to go foraging. Her companion fidgeted, then went back to sleep and didn't get up for another half hour.
I didn't go out early on the two following mornings, but on the second evening, sitting on the patio, I saw them both arrive, check out the harebells, select one, and put themselves to bed. Of course, I can't be sure they were the same couple, but suspect they were. Of course, I had to photograph them again.
Fast forward to June 24th and bed has become a rather scraggy looking harebell but they seem to be holding on determinedly.
My last sighting came on July 1st, sadly a lone bee, squatting in what must have seemed quite a dump after such cosy sleeping arrangements.
I've learnt a good lesson, and would hope that, if you are a gardener dear reader, you have too, and that is to look carefully at harebells (Campanula rontundifolia) before carelessly pinching the flower head to dead-head it!