When wildlife photographer Joe Neely and his fiancé Niccole went out to find poppy flowers, they didn’t expect to experience an incredible moment that we rarely see in bees.
“Niccole was shooting over this since orange Globe Mallow plant that was hidden inside all of these pink flowers and she heard the bees buzzing about,” Neely told Bored Panda. “Then she notices that some of the flowers had bees in them but they were not moving.”
“Well, I never knew that bees slept in flowers but as it turns out these bees (Diadasia diminuta) sleep in the orange flowers called Globe Mallows.”
The Diadasia diminuta – or simply the globe mallow bee – collects pollen from its favorite food plant, globe mallow (Sphaeralcea). According to Forest Service at the United States Department of Agriculture, The globe mallow bees play a vital role in the flower’s reproduction. Their nests are usually found in partially compacted soil along the margins of dirt roads in the western United States.
These two globe mallow bees snuggled together in the flower and Neely took the chance to capture the cutest thing you’ll see in bees. “I used a Nikon d750 and a 150mm macro lens along with an R1C1 Nikon macro flash,” he shared. Neely said he approaches bee photography in the similar approach he applied to any other kind of wildlife photography.
