Insect Shots

Summer is the time that bees, wasps, flies and hornets are around, occasionally causing problems by taking up residence too close for comfort, but they play an incredibly important role in the world around us.  We enjoy the flowers all summer but take for granted the thousands of insects that provide the pollinating.  I've been trying to get a few close-up pictures, (with considerable frustration!), but these few are relatively clear - now all I have to do is learn to identify them!

I'm pretty sure on this one - it's a yellowjacket, here visiting the bloom of a gooseneck loosetrife in our garden.

And this one is a fly of some type - perhaps a blow fly, or a tachinid fly.  I have a long way to go to think of identifying flies correctly!

But I think I'm sure of this one - a bumblebee, here visiting a very tall purple loosestrife in a garden we were visiting last week.

When I photographed hosta blooms and posted them last week, I wondered what insect would provide the pollination for these.  Then a couple of days ago I watched a bumblebee crawl up into the hosta blossoms until it nearly disappeared.  It did this repeatedly, flying from blossom to blossom and almost disappearing each time.  Here it's emerging from a flower and about to fly onward.

Visit Macro Monday 2, to see other close-ups of various things: