They moved into the oak tree outside our bedroom in June. They came as a noisy swarm and looked like they would hang around for awhile.

Turn up the sound and find the darker triangle at the lower curve of the tree. That is the swarm.

To say I was concerned would be an understatement. The spouse is allergic to these wonderful little critters!

But, I have said before, they behaved themselves. They have never come near the dogs, people or the house. They are content in their home in the oak.

These pictures of our wonderful tenants where shot last month as they continued with their housekeeping.

I heard them in a blooming acacia bush where the dogs occasionally hunt lizards. But they never even notice George or Gracie. They were very intent on their work.

I really tried to catch them on film (or card, as the case happens to be). But, as you can see, I failed miserably.

This morning my spouse advised me that the light was amazing on our sole sunflower. (It has been a bad year, heat-wise, for flowering plants in our neighborhood.) His announcement caused me to immediately grab the camera. The sunflower is beautiful and it gives me lots of angles and colors for me to practice my beginner photography skills.

And guess who was having breakfast?

I don’t know his/her/its name or even if it is one that I might have seen before. But he/she/it sparkled as he/she/it worked to find the bits of pollen.

For the technical minded, the shot was taken with a Canon Powershot SX60 Setting was 1/1600 sec,/f 5.6 at 139.97 zoom. I sorta know what that means but I am still learning the language. All I really know is the sun was hitting the flower just right and the shutter had to be fast as the flower was moving in an almost none-existent breeze.

The joy is that the bees are happy here. I am happy that they are here and that they are behaving in a civilized manner. The sunflower is probably happy as well.

Here are some of the other shots I got this morning. I hope you like them as much as I do.

And, yes, there is more than one bee!