Three Bee Macro Monday

I sat on the porch enjoying some of the last bits of warmth and admiring the dwindling flowers when a visitor flew up and joined me.

He buzzed this way and that and I was braver behind my camera than I ever would have been without it.

It wasn't long before we were joined by another bee.

And then another. I'm not sure I've ever seen 3 different kinds of bees in one location before.  They were all moving rather sluggishly.  I snapped these a few days ago, minutes apart, but now the flowers are nearly gone.

Macro Monday is easy to play, snap a macro (or any close-up) photo, post it on your blog and come back here and sign MckLinky. :) MM started on Sept 29, 2008 - Thanx to all of you for helping make it such a fun start to the week!

Impatiens

I tried to catch the bee flying in but it didn't work out so well, the flower looks good though, right? ;)

Then to get this shot I stepped forward and well, put the bee in shadows. Oh well. This post isn't really about the bee anyway.

It's about the Impatiens. We have one of those metal double washtub things and the last two summers we've filled the tubs with flowers. When the roses didn't make it through the winter we decided to fill it with annuals. We picked some Impatiens, Marigolds, and Begonias.

I think this was my first experience with Impatiens and I have to tell you that I was surprised by them. They grew taller than I expected, had continual blooms and pretty much choked out the Marigolds and Begonias. The bees, wasps, dragonflies and butterflies loved them! AND, now this is almost the best part. . .

The seedpods are FUN! My son discovered the thrill and promptly scared every female member of the family by gently handing them one.

You see, when you squeeze them. . .

or just try to hold them or pick them up when the seeds are ready, they explode open, flinging seeds everywhere! This caused many screams by the unsuspecting.

But, they are so much fun when you're expecting the explosion! I had to keep ahold of the pods to get these photos, otherwise you would miss it.

So, in slow-mo, after it splits down one side, it rolls open, flinging seeds, then rolls back, into a C.