Pink Pollen Bee. Meet another lover of thistles. The large and late season Osmia texana. The pink pollen is the pink pollen of thistles (I think one of the non-native ones so maybe other thistles don't have pink pollen?). This bee is part of an experiment run by Dawson Little at Blandy Experiment Station in Virginia (UVA) an undergraduate working with T'ai Roulston and Kate LeCroy. You can't see it well, but this bee is adorned with knobby armatures on the tip of the clypeus and often its massive mandibles, not clear why. Odd to see all the pollen packed into the front legs...also unclear what is going on here. The things you can do if you have six legs.
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All photographs are public domain, feel free to download and use as you wish.
Photography Information:
Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200
We Are Made One with What We Touch and See
We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each spring impassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.
- Oscar Wilde
You can also follow us on Instagram - account = USGSBIML
Want some Useful Links to the Techniques We Use? Well now here you go Citizen:
Best over all technical resource for photo stacking:
www.extreme-macro.co.uk/
Free Field Guide to Bee Genera of Maryland:
bio2.elmira.edu/fieldbio/beesofmarylandbookversion1.pdf
Basic USGSBIML set up:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-_yvIsucOY
USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdmx_8zqvN4
Bees of Maryland Organized by Taxa with information on each Genus
www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/collections
PDF of Basic USGSBIML Photography Set Up:
ftp://ftpext.usgs.gov/pub/er/md/laurel/Droege/How%20to%20Take%20MacroPhotographs%20of%20Insects%20BIML%20Lab2.pdf
Google Hangout Demonstration of Techniques:
plus.google.com/events/c5569losvskrv2nu606ltof8odo
or
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c15neFttoU
Excellent Technical Form on Stacking:
www.photomacrography.net/
Contact information:
Sam Droege
sdroege@usgs.gov
301 497 5840
