Bee Balm Bee Balm Bee Balm Bee Balm. Dufourea monardae. See this bee, it is small and only hangs out on Bee Balm. Look. Look at its tongue. That is a long tongue. Look at Monarda fistulosa (this bee's fav, and perhaps only pollen plant). Ah, those are long individual florets (or whatever the proper term is). Now why are there hairs along the length, but the very tip is bare? Other bees just have a brush, or seemingly none, or scattered hairs, or short hairs, ... pretty much all combinations. Surely someone has looked at tongueitecture of the hairs on bees, but, sadly, I know little of bee tongues (but do have the belief that the hairs are used to "trap" nectar on the tongue). Length of tongue is all over the bee literature and measuring and describing the palps (long topic) on the tongue is great sport among the old taxonomists. But what about those hairs? Bee collected by Ai Wen in Iowa and photo by Cole Cheng.
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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
