It looks as though (sorry for the pun) bees have 2 eyes – the large ones that we see. These are the bee’s compound eyes that consist of many tiny lenses that piece together patterns that the bee sees, enabling it to recognize types of plants and other bees. However, the bee also has 3 additional eyes on the top of its head. These are called simple, or ocelli eyes. These eyes do not see patterns, but can see light. Or more importantly, these eyes see changes in light, which can alert the bee to predators flying overhead. If you look carefully, you can see one of these small ocelli eyes in the top photo; look at the large eye on your left, then look across the top of the bee’s forehead that has black coloring. At the inner tip of that, almost in the center of the forehead, you will see the leftmost oceilli eye as a very small dot. See it? Well done! You can also just barely see it in the second photo.*
*Information from 5 fascinating facts about bee eyes from lensstore.co.uk.
Also posted for: Frank’s Dutch Goes the Photo Tuesday Photo Challenge – Fuzzy and Tourmaline’s Color Your World: Burnt Sienna.
[…] again shares gorgeous photos in her post in Zebra’s Child, as the bees look […]
Wonderful fuzzy bee shots 🙂
Thank you! I was delighted when I looked at them on my computer. I didn’t have a macro, so my various small creature captures were hit and miss. 😉
A lot of my macros are using the telephoto function especially on things that get away if the camera comes close like my Mayfly https://bushboy.blog/2019/09/24/the-mayfly/
Oh my, he’s marvelous. Yes, I was using my telephoto. Sometimes it works better than others – I can have a wide variation on focus when I do that, though. If it’s something that is likely to dart away quickly, I’ll put my setting on auto and then burst mode. The downside of that is that the auto setting often makes its own decision as to what to focus on, despite may best efforts. But at least I have a chance to capture the quickly moving creatures that way!
The auto focus on what the camera wants and what I want is vastly different lol. I took about 6 photos and 4 were out of focus. Why does it want to focus on the background when I want what is in front of me or focus on the foreground when I want the subject at the back. My camera doesn’t respond to me telling it what I want either 😀 😀
😆Ah, yes…………. Silly cameras!
Fantastic images!
Thank you so much, Cath. 🙂