Sleepy bee

My granddaughter brought me an armload of pink rhododendrons to decorate my kitchen table. Later in the evening, I found this bumblebee crawling around on the floor underneath. He must have come in with the flowers. Good thing Jess didn't notice, or she would have dumped the lot.

Love the mustache!

A bright orange tail.

A better look at the wings.

This is a bumblebee, possibly a red-tailed bumblebee, Bombus melanopygus. There is a fly, Merodon equestris, common locally, that looks very much like it, but the eyes are close together in the front of the head, and the antennae are short, barely there. The fly has one pair of wings; bees have two; here you can barely see the rear wings as a darker area underneath the front pair.

I have another of these bumblebees in a collection of different bees and bee mimics from two years ago, here. And more bee info, here.

The bee was lethargic; good for photography, but the lights and the action were cutting into his sleep time. When he started to wake up, I took him outside and left him in a flowerpot out of the rain. In the morning, he was gone.