Colletes laticinctus, m, face, Hooker Co., NE

A cute male bee.... this is the visual of almost all bees in the genus Colletes. Look at how the inner edges of the eyes come closer towards the mouth. For whatever reason, this cutifies pretty much any bee. Enough of that mushy bee stuff. This is a western prairie bee, one that I found at the eastern edge of its range in Hooker, NE. It was just at a pulloff along the road, along some railroad tracks on the universal nectar plant of the prairies...sweet clover. The big difference was that it was in the sandhills...one of the most underrated landscapes in the world. Picture by Kelly Graninger. Photography Information: Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200 USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.