Photographer Planned To Take Photos Of Wildflowers, But Ended Up Capturing Beautiful Pictures Of A Pair of Sleepy, Snuggling Bees

A bee crawled into the flower and the other bee gave it room.

May

• Published in Animal Stories
• September 9, 2021

There are times when flowers aren't the only ones to be snapped for a beautiful photo. This time, we're going to look at bees.

Joe Neely went out for a stroll with his wife. They brought cameras with them, hoping to take pictures of wildflowers blooming near their Arizona residence.

But the couple ended up spotting something more beautiful than the flowers they plan to capture. They stopped by an orchard of globe mallow flowers and then found out that they weren't the only ones in there.

In every bloom, you would usually spot bees doing their business of collecting nectar. But that's not what the couple witnessed this time. After a hard day's work, it seems that the bees are already tired.

Neely said:

We joked that they looked pollen drunk as they stumbled about.

Eventually, every flower they saw had an immobile resident. The bees were asleep.

And then what happened next was just the sweetest thing in that moment.

As the sun went down and it was getting dark, one last bee had yet to find a flower to sleep in.

Then he crawled into one, with the other bee making room for him. Afterwards, the sleepy bees went ahead and cuddled as they share a room in a single flower.

It was just adorable.

Neely silently took photos of the snuggling bees before heading home to let the pale-eyed insects sleep tight.

Then, he posted the pictures on social media. These garnered lots of likes.

Following the event, Neely learned that the insects he and his wife happened upon were called globe mallow bees, named after the orange-coloured flowers. And although some of them diligently retire to their hives at nightfall, others would frequently sleep in their beloved flowers.

And as seen in Neely's photos, they sometimes share a flower with their fellow bees.

May