Alex Wild on insects, science, and photography
Most of my workshops are broadly designed for teaching macro photography. Thus, I am pleased to announce a fun and rather more specialized course, a day-long session on photographing honey bees: Honey Bee Photography June 21st (Friday), 2013 -full day- Long Lane Honey Bee Farms Fairmount, Illinois cost: $89 [register online] The course is intended [...]
If one taxonomic error is repeated in the media more than any other, it is the inability to distinguish between honey bees, Apis mellifera, and bumble bees, about 250 species in the genus Bombus. Such errors are frustratingly common for insects that should be easy to recognize. Here, for example, is a recent story that mistakes a bumble [...]
From this afternoon’s pile of rejects: Not the image I’d intended, but intriguing nonetheless.
At the end of a long summer season of brutal territorial battles and of courting coy females, male carpenter bees are so tired and tattered that they let themselves be handled without protest. There’s no danger of being stung, as all male bees and wasps lack the stinging apparatus. photo details: Canon EOS 7d camera [...]
Pursuant to the discussion below, I took the 7d out to the front garden this evening to film the sweat bees at work: As several of you pointed out, grasses are supposed to be wind-pollinated. But the bright colors of grama flowers surely can’t serve any wind-related function. I suspect the bees are giving the [...]
If you can get past the cheesy narration, this Nat Geo clip shows some excellent footage of Mesoamerican stingless bees:
Who was that beguiling blond with the blue dot? Commentator EntoWannaBe (EntoWanna-Bee?) picks up 8 points for correctly guessing that she’s Cordovan and that the color of the beekeeper’s mark on her back indicates her age. The present insect was born in 2010: this year. She’s a queen from one of the student hives in [...]
Our garden beehives have been growing quickly. The afternoon’s orientation flights- where young bees try out their wings and learn to recognize landmarks around the hive- were especially busy so I pulled out my video gear: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehhB1sKZ5Sw]
What am I doing this summer? Good question. I’m teaching Integrative Biology 496: Introduction to Beekeeping. If you are a University of Illinois student and would like to learn about the biology of Apis mellifera and how to manage a small apiary for honey or just for fun, please consider this 8-week class. Enrollment is [...]
Agapostemon sp. – Halictidae Fairport, NY, USA Photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D. ISO 100, f/13, 1/250 sec, twin flash diffused through tracing paper
A personal blog by Illinois-based biologist and photographer Alex Wild.
Myrmecos- derived from the ancient greek word for "ant"- hosts Alex's musings about these and other little creatures that share our planet.
Questions? Email alwild [at] myrmecos.net; or follow @Myrmecos on Twitter.
