Bev has a bee in her bonnet!

Bev definitely has a bee in her bonnet about photographing bees!  Ever since she got her new 17mm-70mm lens, she has been desperate to get a half-decent photograph of a bee and has been taking hundreds of shots in the hope that at least one comes out ok.

Therefore, when Paul was asked to look after a neighbour's garden while they jetted off on holiday, and that garden contained the largest lavender bush we have ever seen, the conditions for photographing said bees were perfect!  Consequently, on a bright and sunny Sunday, the whole family decamped to the neighbour's garden - Kitty, Paul, all us bears and Bev with her camera!  And while Bev photographed the bees and a ladybird, we bears searched for honey, Kitty marked the garden as his territory and Paul checked if anything needed to be watered.

So, did Bev get any decent shots?  Well, actually there were two visits, the first one producing hundreds of very fuzzy shots, and a second visit using a much faster shutter speed which produced the following photographs:

This cute little ladybird / ladybug appeared on the lavender bush, so Bev got a couple of shots of it before it got bored and wandered off.  Mind you, it doesn't look quite so cute through the lens of the camera - those razor-sharp pincers at the front look rather lethal (gulp)!

This furry bee was busy at work collecting nectar from the flowers, but when it whizzed off to the hive to produce honey, it was too fast for us rather tubby little bears - we just couldn't run fast enough :-(

And this is one of those little blighters taking off with a full load of nectar! 

So, lots of well-watered plants, an expanded territory for Kitty and some half-decent photographs of bees and a ladybird - what more could we ask for?  Well, some yummy honey would definitely have been the icing on the cake!