August 8, 2017, I was invited to give a talk on honey bee photography (which I call “beetography”) to the A2B2 (Ann Arbor Backyard Beekeepers Club) and I suggested that I do a field trip with beekeepers who are interested in shooting bees. I thought I could take 5 people and do hands on with them. Instead I got 15 people from the Shutterbug group.

This is the second time for me to give a talk there this year. And my third trip, I was there the first time about 10 years ago.

Here are some shots I did with my D700 and R1C1 flashes.
1. A bee foraging on Androsace, Primulaceae. This is a new record for me. Never seen honey bees foraging on this flower. I found two honey bees with lots of flowers. So I rate this flower as 1 in attraction scale from 0 to 10.

2. A bee foraging on Cupheallavea, Lythraceae. Bumble bees were foraging on the flowers normally because their longer proboscis can reach the nectar, honey bees choose to “rob” at the base because they could not reach the nectar from the corolla.

3. A bee just landing on a cone flower to make honey, while two fireflies making love

4. A bee foraging on a Celosia.

5. A honey bee foraging a type of sumac. It was filled with honey bees but I do not know the species.

6. A swallowtail foraging on a verbena.

7. I was lucky enough to get really close to the sphinx moth (mostly like a Hemaris, Sphingidae). Usually they are very shy and I could be always 10 meters away. This time I was about 10″ away.

8. Another shot.

Group photo with only part of the group, by Patrick with a Fuji mirrorless.

Just before my talk. There must be about 70 people? (More people came later).

Me answering questions, photo by Patrick

A photo of me talking by Patrick

The following are photos of people shooting in the garden, shot by my cellphone.