“He crawled into this flower with this other bee, who shifted a little to give him room” ❤️ 🐝
Photographer Joe Neely and his wife were out on a stroll with their cameras late one afternoon. They had wanted to photograph wildflowers blooming near their Arizona house.
They did, however, capture something much more lovely.
The pair knew they weren’t alone after stopping beside a grove of orange globe mallow flowers. A bee was buzzing around in almost every bloom, but not with the usual zeal.
The bees, it turned out, were exhausted. Their workday had come to an end.
“As they wandered about, we joked that they looked pollen drunk,” Neely told us. “Shortly after, every of the plant’s blossoms had a motionless occupant in them.” They were dozing off.”
It was a lovely sight to behold. But then something even more delightful occurred.
“As the sun began to drop, one last bee worked hard to find his own flower, but they were all gone,” Neely explained. “As a result, he climbed into this bloom with this other bee, who shuffled a little to make way for him.”
After that, the two tired bees cuddled and shared that one blossom.
“They were really gorgeous,” remarked Neely.
Before he and his wife left them to rest, Neely softly snapped the snuggling bees. It’s currently one of his most popular images.
Later on, Neely discovered that the pale-eyed insects are known as globe mallow bees, after the flowers. While some bee species return to their colonies at dusk, these bees choose to sleep among the flowers they adore.
And, as Neely’s lovely images demonstrate, they occasionally share them with a buddy.
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