Xylocopa Busted!

I've blogged on these wonderful carpenter bees before, but I never tire of taking shots of them. The other day I caught some in the act! Stealing nectar that is.



If you look closely at the head of the bee you can see it is biting the flower near the tubular base, the calyx. They do this to get the nectar that's in the base.

Here is another shot of a carpenter bee doing a bit of stealing:



So people often have this notion of bees and flowers being in one happy little mutualistic relationship- the reality is always more complex! In fact perhaps that leads to a good rule of thumb -

Truth is generally more complex than what we believe.