Portfolio photos for Communicating Science via Photography (1)

I am taking a grad seminar workshop: Communicating Science via Photography. One of the assignments of this workshop is to creat a portfolio to tell a story to the public, trying to engage people to care about what we are doing in the lab. My portfolion will be doing insect pollinators. When we talk about pollinators, the first thing comes into our mind is honey bee. Although it is true that honey bee is the most common pollinator, there are many other bees and insects pollinating flowering plants. I want to show the diversity of insect pollinators.

Here are some photos I have made for my story. More are coming! Cheers!

# 1. Mason bees are mating. Both are infected by Chaetodactylus mite. Another notorious mite species is Varroa destructor, which is one of the main causes of the decline of honey bees.

#2. A bumble bee collecting pollens on a purple deadnettle flower. Bumblebees are really good at collecting pollens. Take a close look at the blurry particles near the bee's antennae. Those are pollens! Scientists have just discovered that wild bumblebees are born with the ability to remove pollen from nectarless flowers using high-frequency vibrations.

# 3. More bumblebee. Five bumblebees are clustering on these milk weed flowers. One of the ways that we can do to save bees or other insect pollinators is to plant bee-friendly flowers and flowering herbs in your garden and yard.